Biography

Mary Hood, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is currently an associate professor of art/printmaking at Arizona State University. Hood received her Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Dallas and her undergraduate degree from Ringling School of Art and Design. Hood’s applied research explores the relationship between traditional technologies (woodcut/intaglio) with emerging technologies (digital/laser engraving) while also writing about theoretical issues surrounding digital culture and printmaking. Hood’s studio practice embraces a cross-disciplinary approach, thus creating a sense of place, time, narrative, and experience in printed works that have been widely exhibited both nationally and internationally earning her awards, residencies, publications and other honors.

Themed Panel

Artist As Explorer
Appropriation in Post Digital Practices
Appropriation takes as its premise that all cultural artefacts are the result of a re-mixing of past ideas and forms. Originality does not exist in the sense that everything written, thought, said, or seen must necessarily be the result of the intersection of one’s imagination with one’s engagement with cultural and historical influences. Though many are resistant to the idea of appropriation as a valid and enriching cultural movement, viewing it instead as the expression of a cultural nihilism or lack of creative thinking, this panel asserts that appropriation is a basic, inevitable form of learning and intellectual progress within culture and society.  Inherent in the process of appropriation is the fact that the new work re-contextualizes whatever it borrows from to create new meaning. In many works the original object/image/idea remains accessible as the original, without being changed or altered in any physical manner. The continued conversation between maker and influence is the topic of this proposed panel.  Historically there has been a steady influence of appropriated images, ideas, language, sociologies, and philosophies within cultural and intellectual dialogue in a post modern, post digital world that is prevalent within contemporary art practices.