Introducing the LR Panelists

Mark A. Cheetham is a professor of art history at the University of Toronto. His focus is art theory, art history from the 18th century to the present and contemporary art. He is the author of Kant, Art, and Art History: Moments of Discipline (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001); Alex Colville: The Observer Observed (Toronto: ECW Press, 1994) (2nd Ed. 1995); The Rhetoric of Purity: Essentialist Theory and the Advent of Abstract Painting, Cambridge New Art History and Criticism series, Norman Bryson, ed. (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1991); and Remembering Postmodernism: Trends in Recent Canadian Art (Oxford and Toronto: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991). He was coeditor with Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey of The Subjects of Art History: Historical Objects in Contemporary Perspective (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998) and coeditor with Martin Kreiswirth of Theory between the Disciplines: Authority / Vision / Politics (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1990). He has curated two national exhibitions: Disturbing Abstraction: Christian Eckart; and Memory Works: Postmodern Impulses in Canadian Art. Cheetham’s awards include a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, a Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute Fellowship, Williamstown, MA (in collaboration with Elizabeth D. Harvey), and the Edward G. Pleva Award for Excellence in Teaching, University of Western Ontario. E-mail: <mark.cheetham@utoronto.ca>.

Maia Engeli is an information architect specializing in the design of information access and exchange. She combines digital networks, computer graphics and artificial intelligence to create information and communication environments that supplement human talent and cognitive skills. Her work focuses on dynamic qualities of on-line information environments, their structural conception and their visual representation. This work has been exemplified in numerous course environments and research projects. Engeli currently works as an independent researcher; she was assistant professor for architecture and CAAD at the Eidgennössische Technische Hochschule Zurich (1996–2002), and the head of the ETH World Center, supporting the ETH community in the creation of the new virtual/physical presence of the ETH Zurich, 2001–2002. E-mail: <maia@enge.li>.

Bronac Ferran is originally from Belfast. He has a Master of Arts in English Literature and Language from Trinity College Dublin and is Director of Interdisciplinary Arts at Arts Council England. The department works closely with other national and international agencies in exploring issues related to art and science, art and technology and art and industry. Key projects include a Fellowships program for artists to work in U.K. science labs, as well as a new DVD series (launching in spring 2004), “Pioneers in Art and Science.” Bronac chaired the planning group for the 2001 CODE conference in Cambridge, England, which looked at how non-proprietary models of ownership can work to drive innovation within the arts and sciences. E-mail: <bronac.ferran@artscouncil.org.uk>.