A multimedia installation by internationally known writer and video artist Alan Sondheim will be on view in the Paul Mesaros Gallery at the WVU Creative Arts Center through Aug. 8.

“The installation, which is titled �€~Not-doing,references releasing oneself both to the information inherent in the world, and to the potential quietude at the heart of it,”said Robert Bridges, curator of the Mesaros Galleries.

Sondheim is a poet, critic and theorist who writes about the Internet. He is one of the foremost figures in the field of new media arts and his work has been published and exhibited internationally. He is visiting WVU through mid-July, hosted by the Center for Literary Computing and the Virtual Environments Laboratory.

Sondheim holds bachelors and masters degrees from Brown University and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. He has published several chapbooks and books of poems, as well as numerous articles and uncategorizeable texts. His books include Disorders of the Real (Station Hill, 1988), .echo (alt-X digital arts, 2001), and the anthology Being on Line: Net Subjectivity (Lusitania, 1996). He also edited Individuals: Post-Movement Art in America (Dutton, 1977). His video and films have been shown internationally.

He co-moderates several email lists, including Fiction of Philosophy, Cybermind, Wryting and Cyberculture. For the past several years he has been working on an”Internet Text,”a continuous meditation on philosophy, psychology, language, body, sexuality and virtuality. He also lectures and publishes widely on contemporary art and Internet issues. He most recently taught at Florida International University as assistant professor of new media, and at Nottingham-Trent University in England as virtual writer-in-residence for trAce Online Writing Community. He is currently associate editor of the online magazine Beehive, and is assembling a special topic for the America Book Review on Codework. His video/soundwork has been screened at Millennium Film in New York City, as well as Western Ontario and York Universities in Toronto, Canada.

Managed and programmed by Curator Robert Bridges and the WVU Division of Art, the Mesaros Galleries organize a diverse and exciting schedule of exhibitions throughout the year. The galleries are committed to showing experimental work that is innovative both in terms of media and content. The Mesaros Galleries also host contemporary artists of important or growing reputation who work in all media in the Visiting Artist program. All the gallery events and receptions are free and open to the public.

The Mesaros Galleries are open Monday through Thursday from noon to 9:30 p.m.; Friday from noon to 9 p.m.; and Saturday from 1 to 9 p.m. They are closed Sundays and on University holidays. Special viewing times may be arranged upon request.

For more information, contact Robert Bridges, curator, at (304) 293-2140 ext. 3210.