Andrea Polli, 2010 WINGS Elected Fellow

"If you find yourself stuck, know that there's always a way around a problem or another way to achieve your goals. Look for alternative solutions and don't be afraid to consider the wildest, most impossible idea, those are the ideas that can lead you to places you never imagined." — Andrea Polli

Artist and Teacher

Born: 1968-11-13

Hometown: Albuquerque, NM

Education: Master of Fine Arts, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Achievements

Discoveries: That 'listening' to data is another way to gain insight into natural phenomena.

Expeditions: The Dry Valleys and the South Pole of Antarctica; hundreds of cities and towns around the world.

Biography

Andrea Polli is a digital media artist, Associate Professor in Fine Arts and Engineering and Director of the Interdisciplinary Film and Digital Media Program and ARTS Lab at The University of New Mexico. Polli's work with science, technology and media has been presented widely in over 100 presentations, exhibitions and performances internationally including the Whitney Museum of American Art Artport and The Field Museum of Natural History, and has been recognized by numerous grants, residencies and awards including UNESCO. Her work has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, Art in America, Art News, NY Arts and others. She has published several audio CDs, DVDs two book chapters and many papers with MIT Press, Cambridge University Press and others.

She currently works in collaboration with atmospheric scientists to develop systems for understanding storm and climate through sound (called sonification). Recent projects include: a spatialized sonification of highly detailed models of storms that devastated the New York area; a series of sonifications of climate in Central Park; and a real-time multi-channel sonification and visualization of weather in the Arctic. In 2007/2008, she spent seven weeks in Antarctica on a National Science Foundation funded project. http://www.90degreessouth.org

As a member of the steering committee for New York 2050, a wide-reaching project envisioning the future of the New York City region, she worked with city planners, environmental scientists, historians and other experts to look at the impact of climate on the future of human life both locally and globally.

She has received a Master of Fine Arts in Time Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and in 2000, she was voted Teacher of the Year at Columbia College in Chicago in recognition of her work connecting students to the wider community through collaborative projects. These projects included performances and exhibitions at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and a large scale public art project connecting 5 neighborhood arts organizations with live web streaming, an exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center and six billboards. Pause. was featured as the Millennium Community Artwork for Illinois and funded by The Mid Atlantic Arts Council and Ameritech.

From 2005-2008, Polli served as the Director of the Integrated Media Arts Masters of Fine Arts Program at Hunter College/CUNY in New York City. She is co-chair of the Leonardo Education Forum, an affiliate of the MIT Press and the College Art Association of America (CAA) that promotes the advancement of research and academic scholarship at the intersections of art, science, and technology and co-chair of the New York Society for Acoustic Ecology, a multi-disciplinary group exploring the urban sound environment and a chapter of the American and World Forums for Acoustic Ecology.

Fun Facts

Favorite Item to have in the field: Binaural microphones to record the most realistic soundscape experience

Heroes: Electronic music pioneer Pauline Oliveros