Tanya Newton-John & Ryan Junell

Bio:

Ryan Junell (born 1973) is a filmmaker, animator, and media designer living in Southwest Connecticut.

His video work includes artful non-fiction about travel, politics, media, and society. His music videos and music films have appeared in programming on MTV2, MTV Europe, MTV Japan, Sonar Festival (Spain), The New York Underground Film Festival, and numerous theaters and galleries around the world. He has created music videos for bands such as Spoon (Merge Records), Gravy Train!!!! (Kill Rock Stars), The Octopus Project (Peek-a-Boo), and Lesser (Matador). Mr. Junell has also done a ton of web building, print design, zine making, set design for theater, and on-air radio dj'ing (KROC/KIXY/KTSB/KVRX).

Ryan is founder and curator of The SLOMO Video Festival, 100 one minute slow motion short films by 85 filmmakers and video artists from around the world. In 2006, the festival toured to 9 countries and 22 cities and was distributed online independently on DVD. 

Junell recently finished his third animation for Creative Commons and has produced animations for several non profits including H2O, WestEd, and PRX (The Public Radio Exchange).

Other members of the Recolony creative team include:

Tanya Newton-John (born 1972) is an art director, illustrator, and designer.

Bevin Kelley (born 1971) is an electronic musician/multimedia composer and veterinary nurse.

David Van Brink (born 1962) is a programmer and polytinkerophile.

Scott Draves

Bio:

Scott Draves (a.k.a. Spot) is a visual and software artist living in New York City. In 1990 he received a BS in Mathematics from Brown University, and in 1997, a PhD from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University for a thesis on metaprogramming for media processing.

Spot started VJing at underground parties in the early '90s and still performs live. In 2004 he published SPOTWORKS, a DVD of visual music.

When not working as a full-time artist, Draves has worked for a series of technology start-ups. First was the fabless microprocessor design company Transmeta, made famous by Linus Torvalds. Later came FastForward Networks, which was acquired by Inktomi, then the PDI/Dreamworks R&D Department, which earned him a feature film credit for Shrek 2. Draves is now an engineer in the mapping division at Google Inc.

Draves is best known as the creator of the Electric Sheep, a continually evolving abstract animation with over 450,000 participants. He created the original Flame algorithm in 1991, the Bomb visual-musical instrument in 1995, and the Electric Sheep in 1999.

Draves' software artworks are released as open source and have been used for two decades by many other artists and designers in their own work. Most recently, Draves created Generation 243, a commissioned piece for the Gates Center for Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Other works include Clade 1, a rare true high-definition video artwork that runs a 26-minute loop. Dreams in High Fidelity, a moving painting that runs infinitely, is installed in the lobby of Google's headquarters, and has been acquired by corporate and residential collections nationally.

Draves' award-winning work is permanently hosted on MoMA.org, and has appeared in Wired and Discover magazines, as an official skin for Google Chrome, as the graphic identity for Siggraph 2008, the Prix Ars Electronica 1993, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, and on the main dance-floor at the Sonar festival in Barcelona.

Elena Rose Ailes

Bio:
Elena Ailes was born on the fourth floor of Presbyterian hospital in Albuquerque in September in 1981. Elena’s mother reports being unable to reach the television mounted at the ceiling, and thus spent much of her labor watching reruns of Kung-Fu.  Simultaneously, thousands of miles away, Simon and Garfunkel were performing at a free concert in Central Park attended by half a million people.  This was the first concert they performed together in a decade, overcoming conflicts in their friendship and artistic process.

Elena received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico in 2004. She had the great honor of working closely with photographers and artists such as Patrick Nagatani, Jim Stone and Joyce Neimanas. Elena has continued to work in the arts as a curator, exhibit designer and production assistant for a number of nationally and internationally exhibiting artists. She has also been working in the wine industry as a Sommelier since 2010. She recently relocated from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Brooklyn, NY. Although she is thrilled with the move, this is probably why she keeps making work about grey skies.

Artist Statement:

In my work I create physical structures that allow an idea to organize itself within a specific form.  I allow the natural patterns of the materials used and the physical act of ‘making’ to inform the evolution of the work.  I like to think of my work as a conversation between two systems, the first of which is myself as an organism with a specific history and set of values, the second system being a set of physical limitations, rules and materials that have been decided beforehand.  My motivation as a maker--and, well, as a person--is to impart ‘of myself’; to challenge the parts of my intellect or spirit that seem tight or underused, to provide a place for wonder, play or exploration for viewers and collaborators.

My newest work is of felted cloud-like structures. Grey, black and white wool are blended together to create ‘storm clouds’, each one distinct and perfect.  I hand stitch together these clouds into larger tapestries and further embellish them with embroidery. These tapestries are intended to be low hanging skies within the gallery itself; hung low, manipulating the viewer into a hunched or stooped position.  Eventually, I’d like to create ‘atmospheric pressure’ though the use of sound, light and physical space.

Clouds and light are the evolving features of our daily skies. I have begun to explore how my manufactured clouds interact with light.  As a record these interactions, I’ve started cataloging each of my felted clouds as a cyanotype photogram.

This body of work mixes the visual language of science and craft. It is informed by the most personal struggles and desires, as well as arcing philosophical inquiries and the purity of form, light and space.