Both Bob Trotman and Jody Zellen explore the human condition in very different ways. Zellen presents humans in her work as abstracted, nameless ciphers navigating a complex and often violent world. Through her use of one full year of the New York Times “World News” website, Zellen presents us to ourselves through the media, mediated in a variety of ways. Trotman’s approach is much more direct and less abstracted, but his sculptural works address the corporate world with all of its discontents. His larger than life human figures are suffused with dread, melancholy, or desperation, yet they are cloaked in the uniform of the powerful. Through both artists’ works, we see the de-civilizing effects of greed, power, and privilege.

Jody Zellen is a Los Angeles-based artist who works in many media simultaneously to make interactive installations, mobile apps, net art, animations, drawings, paintings, photographs, public art, and artists’ books. She employs media-generated representations as raw material for aesthetic and social investigations.  

Jody Zellen’s Time Jitters installation for Above the Fold  was a collaborative project between the artist, the Department of Music, and the Computing in the Arts (CITA) program at the College of Charleston. The project design and implementation team was comprised of two faculty members: Dr. Bill Manaris (CITA) and Dr. Yiorgos Vassilandonakis (Dept. of Music); students David Johnson, Corey Reid-Smiley, Seth Stoudenmier, and Matthew Tuton; and the Halsey Institute’s then-preparator, Andrew Steever. In addition to logistical and programming concerns, this group’s ideas and input shaped the interactive aspects of the installation and expanded the possibilities of the immersive experience. This partnership was partially funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Her interactive installations include The Unemployed, a data visualization at Disseny Hub Museum, Barcelona, 2011; The Blackest Spot, Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles, 2008; Trigger, Pace University, New York, 2005; and Disembodied Voices, Los Angeles, 2004. 

Zellen has received commissioned to create interactive net art projects. Spine Sonnet, 2011, was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Lines of Life, 2010, was commissioned by Terminal at Austin Peay State University; and Without A Trace was a 2009 commission by Turbulance, a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. in New York City. Other net art projects include Ghost City, which was begun in 1997. It is an ever-changing poetic meditation on the urban environment. Zellen also produced Urban Fragments, Talking Walls and Disembodied Voices. In addition to making net art projects, she also creates digital animations. Her animation Of Life, 2011, was the first project to be displayed at Tractionartsin April 2013.

In 2012, she was a recipient of a California Community Foundation Mid Career Fellowship and in 2011 she received a Center for Cultural Innovation Artistic Innovation Grant and a Fellowship from the City of Santa Monica to develop an artwork for mobile devices. She has continued making iPhone/iPad apps. Her five apps Urban Rhythms, Spine Sonnet, Art Swipe, 4 Square, and episodic are available for free in the iTunes app store. 

For more information, visit www.JodyZellen.com