Catherine Richards

Born and raised in Ottawa, Catherine Richards earned a B.A. (Honours) in English from York University in 1971 and a B.A. (Honours) in Visual Arts from the University of Ottawa in 1980. In 1997, she was granted doctoral equivalency by the University of Ottawa under Article 23.4.2.3. == Practice ==

Richards' practice is rooted in collaborative projects that bring together interdisciplinary teams to investigate the human body in relation to science and technology. She is concerned with agency and connection, as well as immersion and isolation. Richards also explores human emotions, attempting to model the slippage between physiology and emotions in her work. Her practice is informed by her earliest influences in media theory, philosophies of technology, the technologized body, and early concepts of posthumanism. The philosophical grounding of her work draws on the scholarship of Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, and George Grant. During her tenure with the Canadian Government, she worked in various positions at the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, Federal Department of Communications, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, providing access to some of the earliest developments in computer graphics. She also worked with the National Film Board of Canada under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau. Paul Virilio's writing on the philosophy of technology and aesthetics played a role in her practice. == Notable works ==

Curiosity Cabinet at the End of the Millennium Curiosity Cabinet at the End of the Millennium (1995) inverts the historical logic of the curiosity cabinet, transforming the viewing subject into the viewed object. The participant climbs inside and closes the door, completing a circuit that transforms the cabinet into what Richards terms a 'safe house', a Faraday cage that conducts radio frequencies, microwaves, television signals, cellular transmissions, and other elements of the upper RF spectrum through its copper surfaces and into the earth via a thick braided ground wire. Inside, the participant becomes simultaneously protected and displayed: visible through the copper screening to outside viewers, yet electromagnetically isolated, unplugged from human-generated frequencies. , Arnhem, Holland. Charged Hearts Charged Hearts (1997) consists of three principal types of objects: the central Terrella orb, two anatomically correct glass hearts, and an online game. The Terrella orb contains phosphorescent charged gases, alluding to the original use in the nineteenth century to replicate Aurora Borealis, while also simulating the Earth’s magnetic poles. Within the Terrella is a cathode ray, the technological basis for television and computer screens. The pair of glass hearts glow within their bell jars (themselves vessels that allow observation), being electrically charged by the Terrella. For viewers to safely handle the hearts and lift them up, the organs are encased in glass and loosely tethered by a copper coil at their bases. Embracing the domes evokes changes in the Terrella and hearts, prompting pulsations in light intensity, as viewers become material participants in the electrical current. The glass hearts are charged both literally and figuratively; the human heart remains the symbolic seat of emotions and is also a very real electromagnetic field. The excited electrons flutter and pulse within the vacuum sealed hearts and activate changes in the Terrella. When touched, a shadowy heart appears in the phosphorescent gases." == Exhibitions ==

Solo exhibitions Source unless otherwise cited: 2014 • When Objects Have Agency. Open Gallery, OCADU. Toronto, Ontario. • Objects That Make Us. The Manitoba Museum. Winnipeg, Manitoba. 2007 • Health Care, Technologies and Places (HTCP): Contributions and Provocations from Humanists and Artists. University of Toronto. Toronto, Ontario. 2000 • Excitable Tissues. Ottawa Art Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. • Art, Science, and Creativity. National Research Council of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario. • Creativity 2000. National Research Council of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario. 1999 • Curiosities. Dunlop Art Gallery. Regina, Saskatchewan. 1998 • Charged Hearts. Elaine L. Jacob Gallery, Wayne State University. Detroit, Michigan. • Charged Hearts. Powerplant Gallery. Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario. 1997 • Charged Hearts. Commissioned, National Gallery of Canada. Ottawa, Ontario. 1980 • Sites. Warehouse Wellington Street. Montreal, Quebec. c1970s • Closed Circuit Pieces. Pestalozzi College. Ottawa, Ontario. Group Exhibitions Source unless otherwise cited: 2019 • 24/7. Somerset House. London, UK. • Carbon and Light. Ottawa Art Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. 2018 • ''Àdisòkàmagan / Nous connaître un peu nous-mêmes / We'll all become stories.'' Ottawa Art Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. 2017 • Corpus. New Media Gallery. Vancouver, British Columbia. • Great and North. Istituto Veneto Scienze, Lettere ed Arti. Venice, Italy. 2016 • The Body Electric. Virtual Exhibition. Royal College of Physicians and International Conference on Residency Education. • Hybrid Bodies. Kunstkraftwerk. Leipzig, Germany. 2015 • The Age of Catastrophe. Actual Contemporary & Video Pool Media Arts Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba. • Hearts and Minds. Hannah Maclure Centre, University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. • Flesh of the World. Doris McCarthy Gallery. Toronto, Ontario. 2014 • Still Lives. PHI Centre, Montreal, PQ. 2013 • Transitio_MX 05 Biomediaciones. New Media Art and Video Festival. Mexico City, Mexico. • Patent Pending. ZERO1 Garage. San Jose, California. • Heart of the Moment: Selections from the Permanent Collection. 25th Anniversary. Ottawa Art Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. • Hybrid Bodies. PHI, Concordia University, Montreal, PQ. 2012 SPLICE: At the Intersection of Art & Medicine. Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto, Ontario. • ''L'intrus''. YYZ Gallery, Toronto, Ontario. • Mirror Neurons: AV Festival. The National Glass Centre, University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK. 2010 • PROTOTYPE, Electric Fields: Festival of Electronic Art and Sound. Karsh-Masson Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. 2008 • SPECTROPIA. 10th International Festival for New Media Culture, Art+Communications. Riga City Exhibition Hall. Riga, Latvia. • Imagining Science: An Exploration of Science, Society and Social Change. Art Gallery of Alberta. Edmonton, Alberta. 2007 • e-art, Les vases communicants. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Montreal, Quebec. • Global Eyes. ACM SIGGRAPH. San Diego, California. • Science in Art. Virtual exhibition Galerie de l'UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) Virtual Museum of Canada. 2006 • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. V2/TENT. Rotterdam, Netherlands. • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. Ludwig Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art. Budapest, Hungary. • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. Centro Cultural Conde Duque Medialab. Madrid, Spain. • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. Maison européenne de la photographie (MEP). Paris, France. 2005 • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. ZKM: Center for Art and Media. Karlsruhe, Germany. • Resonance: The Electromagnetic Bodies Project. Oboro. Montreal, Quebec. • Digital Discourse. St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity. Valletta, Malta. • The Art Formally Known as New Media. Walter Phillips Gallery. The Banff Centre for the Arts. Banff, Alberta. 2004 • As yet unnameable. Bard College. Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. • Sydney Biennale 2004. Sydney, Australia. 2000 • Engaging the Virtual. Dalhousie Art Gallery. Halifax, Nova Scotia. 1998 • Aurora. Interaccess Gallery. Toronto, Ontario. • Self Determination / Body Politic. Gemeentemuseum. Arnhem, Holland. • Time, Space and Realities. A Space Gallery. Toronto, Ontario. 1994 • The Body Obsolete. SAW Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. • Arte Virtual. Metro Opera. Madrid, Spain. • 15 years of Ars Electronica. Landesgalerie, Museum of Contemporary Art. Linz, Austria. • The Virtual Body. The International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA). Helsinki, Finland. 1993 • State of the Image. Eldorado Museum. Antwerp, Belgium. • Teckno Viscera. Institute of Modern Art. Fortitude Valley, Australia. 1981 • Circuit + -. Galerie Motivation Cinq. Montreal, Quebec. 1979 • Recent Work and Work in Progress. SAW Gallery. Ottawa, Ontario. 1973 • Multi-monitor Installations and Performance pieces. First Women and Film International Festival. Ottawa, Ontario. == Selected publications by the artist ==

• "Hearts and Agency." Jill Scott (ed) TRANSDISCOURSE 3: Gender in Art, Science and Body Politics. Vienna: De Gruyter, 2019. • "Hybrid Bodies: Rethinking Heart Transplantation." The Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University. (Montreal, Quebec) pp 40–49, 2016. • "Excitable Tissues and Virtual Worlds: Art, Science, and Technology". Inno'va-tion: Essays by Leading Canadian Researchers. (Canadian Foundation for Innovation, 2002) www.innovation.ca Republished: Judith Miller (ed), Reading & Writing Canada. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company). Approximately pp 4, 2005. • "Tactical Zones: Collapse of the Visual". Cartographies: The General Assembly on New Media Art / Cartographies: Les États généraux de nouveau médias: Conference Proceedings. Montreal: Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts / L'Inter-Société des arts électroniques. 2000. • "Body Boundaries". Paul Hertz (ed). YLEM.19.2, Jan/Feb. pp 15–24, 1999. • "Fungal Intimacy: The Cyborg Trope in Feminism and Media Art." in Lyn Hershman Leeson (ed), Clicking In: Hot Links to a Digital Culture. (San Francisco: Bay Press) pp 258–263, 1996. • "It's Déjà Vu All Over Again: Virtual Reality." Canadas. (New York: Semiotext(e)) pp 264–267, 1994. • "Virtual Bodies: What a Blow that Phantom Gave Me". Angles of Incidence: reflections of multimedia artworks. Proceedings of the Multimedia Communications '93 Conference, International Council or Computer Communications, Banff, April, 1993. Banff: Media Arts Program – Banff Centre for the Arts, pp 15–22, 1993. • Richards, Catherine and Nell Tenhaaf eds. Virtual Seminar on the Bioapparatus. Banff Centre for the Arts, 120 pp, 1991. • "Virtual Reality: The Rebirth of Pure Art?". ''Woman's Art.'' 41: 4–6, 1991. • "Virtual Worlds, Digital Images". American Film Institute Video Festival. Los Angeles, CA: American Film Institute, pp 66–67, 1987. • "Mapping a Sensibility: Computer Imaging". ''SIGGRAPH' 83: Exhibition of Computer Art.'' Chicago, IL: Siggraph - Special Interest group for Computer Graphics and Animation, pp 21, 1983. • "Computer Culture". Agenda. 5.1:17-21 (Spring) 1982. == Selected bibliography ==

2025 • Arozqueta, Claudia. Heartbeat Art. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2025. 2024 • Asselin, Olivier. Art School Confidential. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 2024. 2023 • Heeyoung, Kim. "Media Archaeology Methodology and Artistic Practice." Public Art, Volume 20 (2023): 38. 2022 • Century, Michael. Northern Sparks : Innovation, Technology Policy, and the Arts in Canada from Expo ’67 to the Internet Age. 1st ed. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2022. 2019 • Langill, Caroline Seck. Carbon + Light: Juan Geuer’s luminous precision. Ottawa: Ottawa Art Gallery, 2019. • Cumming, Laura. "24/7: A Wake-Up Call for our Non-Stop World Review – in search of lost time". The Guardian. 2019. Online publication. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/nov/10/24-7-a-wake-up-call-for-our-non-stop-world-review-comerset-house-london 2018 • McIver, Gillian. "'What does it mean to be humans?' Biotechnologies, Ethics and Art". The Art Traveller. 2018. Online publication. 2016 • El- Sheikh, Tammer. "The Body Which is not One: four artists' responses to the culture and experience of heart transplantation" Hybrid Bodies. Rethinking Heart Transplantation. Canada: Concordia University, 2016. 2015 • Bruneau, Jaclyn. "The Body's Freedom in Restriction" Canadian Art. 2015. Online publication. • Tofts, Darren. "View in half or varying light: Joel Zika's neo-baroque aesthetics" Digital Light. Sean Cubitt, Daniel Palmer and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds). Open Humanities Press, 2015. 193-203 2011 • Cook, Sarah, & Diamond, Sara (eds). The Banff New Media Institute Dialogues: Euphoria and Dystopia. Banff: Banff Center Press, 2011. 490-97. • Mura, Gianluca (ed.). "Case Study: Catherine Richards." Metaplasticity in Virtual Worlds: Aesthetics and Semantic Concepts. Igi Global, 2011. 61-63. 2009 • Dyson, Frances. "Enchanting data: body, voice and tone in affective computing." Emotion, Place and Culture. Liz Bondi, Laura Cameron, Joyce Davidson, Mick Smith (eds). Aldershot, Hants, UK: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2009. 247-266. • Dyson, Frances. "Atmospheres". Sounding New Media: rhetorics of immersion and embodiment in the arts. California: UC Press, 2009. 1-246. • Langill, Caroline. Shifting Polarities: Exemplary Works of Canadian Electronic Media Art Produced Between 1970 and 1991. Montreal, QC: La fondation Daniel Langlois, 2009. 2005 • Tuer, Dot. "The Heart of the Matter: the Mediation of Science in the Art of Catherine Richards." Mining the Media Archive. Essays on Art, technology, and cultural resistance. Canada: XYZ Books, 2005. 25-33. • Sawchuck, Kim. "Charged Heart: The Electronic Art of Catherine Richards." Horizon 0.6. Banff New Media Institute, 2005. 2003 • Hayles, N. Katherine. "Supersensual Chaos and Catherine Richards' "Excitable Tissues"." Catherine Richards: Excitable Tissues, edited by Sylvie Fortin, The Ottawa Art Gallery, 2003, pp. 9–24. • Morse, Margaret. "The Poetics of Interactivity." Women, Art & Technology. Judy Malloy (ed). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. 17-31. • Sawchuk, Kim. "Charged Heart: The Electronic Art of Catherine Richards." Horizon Zero. Issue 06. Banff New Media Institute, 2003. 2001 • Phelan, Peggy. Art and Feminism. Reckitt, Helena (ed). New York: Phaidon Press, 2001. 171-172, 292. 1998 • Sawchuk, Kim. "Catherine Richards." Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine. 89, Jan/Feb/March (1998): 49-50. 1996 • Dyson, Frances. "Charged Havens." World Art. March (1996): 42-47. • Hayles, Katherine N. "Embodied Virtuality: Or How To Put Bodies Back in the Picture". Immersed In Technology: Art and Virtual Environments. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. 1-28. 1995 • Huhtamo, Erkki. "Excavation Area: A Virtual Gallery of Archaeological Art." InterCommunication. 14, Autumn (1995): 147. == Selected awards, fellowships, residencies, and research-creation projects ==