Composer JOANN KUCHERA-MORIN is Director and Chief Scientist of the AlloSphere Research Facility and Professor of Media Arts and Technology and Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research focuses on creative computational systems, multi-modal media systems content and facilities design. Her years of experience in digital media research led to the creation of a multi-million dollar sponsored research program for the University of California—the Digital Media Innovation Program. She was Chief Scientist of the Program from 1998 to 2003. The culmination of Professor Kuchera-Morin’s creativity and research is the AlloSphere, a 30-foot diameter, 3-story high metal sphere inside an echo-free cube, designed for immersive, interactive scientific and artistic investigation of multi-dimensional data sets. Scientifically, the AlloSphere is an instrument for gaining insight and developing bodily intuition about environments into which the body cannot venture—abstract higher-dimensional information spaces, the worlds of the very small or very large, and the realms of the very fast or very slow. Artistically, it is an instrument for the creation and performance of avant-garde new works and the development of new modes and genres of expression and forms of immersion-based entertainment. JoAnn Kuchera-Morin earned a Ph.D. in composition from the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester in 1984.
FREDERICK JANKA is a queer latinx arts advocate and cultural producer based in Santa Barbara, California, on the unceded traditional lands of the Chumash. He specializes in organizing and fundraising for artists and exhibitions, advocating for the preservation of cultural resources, and centering Black, Brown, and Indigenous solidarity as a practice of healing. With close to 20 years in the contemporary art world, his vast experience in administrative, fundraising, and curatorial roles at galleries, museums, and arts nonprofits in the US and Mexico include Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, SculptureCenter, New Art Dealer’s Alliance and the NADA Art Fair, among others. His current roles include Board President of the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara and cohort member of the Readying The Museum initiative.
Our two co-presenters will be discussing four objects from the David Bermant Foundation Collection: Nam June Paik, Participation TV, 1969; Otto Piene, Light Ballet I; Marcel Duchamp, Rotorelief (optical discs) 1935-1953, edition c. 1965, and Alejandro & Moira Sina, Spinning Shaft 1978, 1983. Drawing connections between these artworks and current and upcoming artworks and projects at the Allosphere and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, including DJ Javier: San Milano Drive (October 2025) and Falling into the Future: Kinetic Art at the Edge of the World (October 2026).
Responders
SHANNON KENNEDY is best known in the documentary field as an accomplished editor whose feature credits include award winning films featured on HBO, POV, CBC, BBC, Arte and others. These include films that have been shortlisted, nominated and/or won Emmys, Independent Spirit Awards, Academy Awards, DuPont Awards, and premiered and won awards at prestigious festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca, Hot Docs, SXSW, the Viennale, Locarno and many more. She’s also been a fellow and an advisor at the Sundance Institute. Shannon has had a parallel career as a visual artist. She’s received numerous grants and fellowships for her experimental photography and film work, including from the Jerome Foundation, the McKnight Foundation and Creative Capital. Her work has been shown at museums and galleries around the world, including solo shows at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the St. Louis Art Museum, to name a few. She lives and works outside of Boston.
MANJARI SHARMA is an internationally recognized LA-based Visual Artist exploring ritual, identity, memory, and mythology. Manjari was born and raised in Mumbai, India, and she uses photography, sound, motion, projection, and collage in her storytelling. Manjari’s project ‘Darshan’ (Published by Nazraeli Press) is a photographic re-imagining of Hindu deities that has garnered her wide critical acclaim. Her works can be found in The New York Times, Vice Magazine, CNN, LA Times, The Huffington Post, and NPR, to name a few, and her projects have been published and exhibited in galleries, museums, and festivals worldwide. Manjari is a proud recipient of the prestigious Pollock Krasner Foundation grant (2024), and her works are in the permanent collection of The MET, MFA, Houston, Carlos Museum, and Birmingham Museum of Art, amongst various private collections.
