Rob Ray is an installation artist and experimental musician living and working in Chicago, Illinois.
Rob began building blue box circuits, distortion pedals, and TV set crucifixes while wasting away in high school art class. Since that time, Rob has continued his quest to find the undiscovered anomalies within electronic and social normative systems. Some of his most recent adventures include successfully cracking electronic theft prevention systems and documenting the lives of gay truckers.
Rob is also the founder of the Deadtech gallery in Chicago and a member of the Chicago circuit-bent multimedia noise trio I love Presets
Selected Exhibitions
2007 - Guilty Party - part of the High Impact exhibition - Deadtech, Chicago
2007 - State Champion Owner/Operator - part of the Interstitial exhibition - Zhou Brothers Art Center, Chicago
2005 - Ahbyezyana - in collaboration with Deborah Stratman - VONZWECK Gallery, Chicago
2005 - pr0nopticon - small plastic bits of flesh for free - Ausgang.com, Chicago
2003 - Hermit - in collaboration with Paul Davies and Morrison Lyman - in abandoned building scheduled for demolition
2002 - Tornado - in collaboration with Leslie Clague, Paul Davies, Craig Miller, Tyler Cufley, Tina Burton, and Jesse Paul Miller. - DEADTECH Gallery, Chicago
2000 - Guilty Party - solo exhibition - DREADED SEVEN THREE SPLIT Gallery, Chicago
Selected Audio Works
2004 - remix for TV Pow. Burned Bridges and Lost Loves - Bottrop Boy Records
2003 - Snake Charm - 3" CD - Crippled Intellect Productions
I also make audio/visual racket with I Love Presets.
Curation
1999-Current - Chief Curator - DEADTECH Gallery, Chicago
Deadtech was one of the first art and technology centers in the United States and is host to technology-enabled art and artists from across the globe.
2003-Current - Organizer - Chicago Dorkbot
The Chicago Dorkbot is part of a lose affiliation of other Dorkbots across the globe. A Dorkbot is where people do strange things with electricity.
Education
Faculty Advisor - MFA Studio, Sculpture Department
School of the Art Institute Chicago
BFA, Northeastern Illinois University - Magna Cum Laude
Minor - Biology
Speaking
2007
Exhibiting New Media Art
Location: Columbia College, Chicago
Professor: Erik Brown
"Exhibiting New Media Art" presentation and discussion. Presented one session of 2 hours to 8 students. Session provided guidance on installating and exhibiting screen-based art.
Power Tools 2: Interchangable Bits, Independent & Collaborative Practices
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
- Beyond the Postcard: Web and Print Sessions.
"Quick Websites" presentation and tutorial.
Presented two sessions of 1.5 hours to 25 students in the computer lab.
Each session provided hands-on guidance to 25 students on content planning, understanding your audience, and development of a portfolio website using the open source Wordpress content management tool.
Also presented a 30 minute "Email Marketing Strategies for Artists." for each group.
Creative Chicago Expo - Conversations on Creativity
Location: Chicago Cultural Center
Public conversation with Martin Atkins - amazing artist, drummer, writer, and owner of Invisible Records.
We had a great conversation on attention spans, longevity, and time management. A podcast of the conversation is available on the Chicago Artists' Resource website or you can download the mp3 right here (23 megs).
Other conversations included:
Jim Lasko (Redmoon Theater) + Katrina Markoff (Vosges Haut-Chocolat)
Nick Cave (Visual Artist) + Jennifer Reeder (Video Artist)
2006
Guest Lecturer - Graduate Lighting Lab
Professor: Bridgette Buckley
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
Hour-long presentation to inspire students to take structural and functional clues from Biology (especially Botany) and incorporate those elements into their lighting designs.
This lecture kicked-off a two month design project where the students designed and fabricated a lighting/shading system based on plants and trees native to Chicago. Their works exhibited as a group show titled "Curtain/Wall" at the Chicago Art Department in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago.
Speaker and Panelist - Multiplicities - [FRAY] conference
Moderator: Jon Cates
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago - Film, Video & New Media Dept
Discussions and presentations on connective and collaborative New Media and Digital Arts with Ryan Griffis (The Temporary Travel Office, YOUgenics and The School of Art & Design University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana ), and Lincoln Schatz (OPEN-NODE and The Upgrade! Chicago)
The Entrepreneurial Spirit
Moderator: Mary Jane Jacob
Panel discussion with Peter B. Landon, Ben Nicholson, Morgan Puett and Tony Wight.
“On the Being of Being an Artist” – “The Entrepreneurial Spirit” Presentation
Mary Jane Jacob, Editor; Published by School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2006
2002
Speaker - Version02 Festival - Chicago
Presentation of the technical and social implications of hacking/cracking/phreaking. Technical review of DeCAPitator/ReCAPitator - Reverse Engineering of the CAPS shopping cart theft prevention system. Also presented an overview of reverse engineering techniques.
2001
Panelist - Out of the Studio into the World
Moderator: Hamza Walker
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
Hour-long panel with Rob Davis, Vincent Dermody, Kathryn Hixon, Jennifer Reeder, and Laura Weathered discussing the role of an artist outside the studio.
Panelist - Nomads and Homesteaders
Moderator: Stephanie Rothenberg and Holen Kahn
Location: School of the Art Institute Chicago
Hour-long panel with Ariella Ben-Dov, Sheela Grace-Murthy, Hamza Walker, Brian Frye, Astria Suparek, Paul Chan, Lool Cuab, the People’s Republic of Delicious Food, and Sabrina Craig discussing artistic success via communities and "homesteading."