For LAABF 2020, Dancing Foxes Press planned to launch “Upgrade Available,” by artist and writer Julia Christensen, whose work redefines the intersection of art, technology, and outer space. The volume documents an ongoing investigation by Christensen into “upgrade culture”—the notion that we need to constantly upgrade our electronics to remain relevant—and how this shifts our perception of time. In this video, Christensen explains the inspiration, encounters, and process of making this new book. [Video footage from Upgrade Available: Live and Illustrated, produced by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art / Art + Tech Lab, April 2020].
This is the second update with Art + Technology Lab grant recipient Julia Christensen. For the past year, the artist has been working with Jet Propulsion Laboratory's A-Team to envision an artwork for a long term interstellar mission and also develop a 200-year operational CubeSat in low-Earth orbit. The CubeSat will send data about it's operational "health" back and forth with a network of trees on Earth, which will be sending data about their health (such as responses to light and water).
