SAN JOSE, CA.- The Jennifer Steinkamp survey exhibition, curated by SJMA senior curator JoAnne Northrup, offers an in-depth overview of this important artist's work beginning in 1993. Featuring more than ten digital animation installations, the exhibition will run through October 1, 2006.

Melding aspects of computer animation, digital media, experimental film, and architecture, Steinkamp creates ravishing abstract and figurative projections that reside in the realm between the physical and the virtual. Technology plays a major role in her art, however it never takes precedence over the desired aesthetic effect - her computer is the equivalent of oil paint, palette, and brushes.

Steinkamp is arguably the most important video and new media artist of her generation, and she brings a heightened focus on human sensory experience through her phenomenological installations, using light, motion, and sound to dematerialize and activate space, setting her oeuvre apart from that of her peers. Steinkamp has exhibited both nationally and internationally, but never before has a survey of her work been assembled.

Inspired by the work of Light and Space artists such as James Turrell and Robert Irwin, Steinkamp strives to erase the boundary between viewer and object, constructing environments that defy materiality, encouraging total immersion. These installations acknowledge the human body by creating disorienting effects, manipulating the senses, overwhelming with movement, effecting a range of responses from delight and awe to something bordering on vertigo.

Born in 1958 in Denver, Colorado, Steinkamp was raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, for both under-graduate and graduate work, earning her B.F.A. in 1989 and her M.F.A. in 1991. Her interest in light and projection began in a class taught by Gene Youngblood, author of Expanded Cinema (1970), who introduced Steinkamp to the work of animators such as Ed Emshwiller and Oskar Fischinger, the latter best known for working for Disney on Fantasia. Steinkamp is currently a tenured professor in UCLA's Design | Media Arts Department.

Steinkamp has consistently pushed beyond the limitations of her genre, imagining new and uncharted territories ripe for exploration, with technology in her service. She transforms three-dimensional computer graphics normally used for games and special effects into resoundingly beautiful, thoughtful works of art, experienced not simply with the eyes, but by all the senses.

Steinkamp and ZeroOne
In addition to being a major exhibition for SJMA, the Steinkamp exhibition is the cornerstone of the Museum's contribution to the ZeroOne San Jose International Arts Festival - a milestone festival to be held biennially that makes accessible the work of the most innovative contemporary artists in the world. As the hub of the event, Steinkamp will be SJMA's jewel in the crown along with On the Edge, an exhibition featuring Listening Post, a spectacular installation by Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin. The Museum will also be hosting C4F3, an interactive / digital cafe. ZeroOne runs from August 5 - 13, 2006 and includes symposia, over 30 exhibitions, and nightly events throughout the week.

Steinkamp Tour
The exhibition will travel to the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and be on view from February 2, 2007 through May 13, 2007 and, then be on view at the Albright-Knox Gallery from November 16, 2007 through February 24, 2008.

Publication
The 192-page book published in conjunction with the exhibition, in partnership with Prestel Verlag, is a work of art in itself. Designed by Stripe/Gail Swanlund and General Working Group/Geoff Kaplan, it is authored by Northrup and features contributions by art critic, art historian, and MacArthur Fellow David Hickey, and New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY Curator at Large Dan Cameron.

About SJMA
SJMA is the leading institution dedicated to visual culture in Silicon Valley. It is a community anchor, ensuring artistic excellence and access for an extraordinarily diverse populace. It is a contemporary art center whose acclaimed exhibitions have ranged across modern masterworks to the newest frontiers of art. It is a cultural crossroads, more than doubling its attendance since instituting a free admission policy. It is the largest visual arts education provider in Santa Clara County. It is a source of inspiration, contemplation, and delight for a fast-moving community. It is a Museum of the future. For more information visit www.SanJoseMuseumofArt.org.

The Jennifer Steinkamp exhibition has been supported in part by the generous contributions of: NEC, Deutsche Bank, LEF Foundation, Myra Reinhard Family Foundation.