ART Habens Byron Rich
When I was twelve I became quite sick , and spent many months in hospital hooked up to myriad life support systems . I think I started to believe I was a bit of a cyborg , artificially sustained via this vast digital / mechanical apparatus . I should mention that my dad and I would always watch Star Trek : The Next Generation , so the Borg was omnipresent in my imagination . Spending so much time alone while sick I somehow felt a strange sense of interconnectedness to something larger than myself . I talked myself out of isolation and into believing that I was just a tiny part of a massively complex system that included digital and mechanical entities . I was a bit intense for someone not even in their teenage years .
I spent my teens grappling with angst , but finding an outlet in an art class that I took every Friday night for 4 or 5 years . The meditative vibe that this class seemed to elicit brought me some peace .
Then University . I studied with a wonderful professor , Jean-Rene Leblanc . He really set me free to be as creatively liberated as I desired . In a way , I set up my own classes , and pursued whatever medium I felt best articulated my message , most of the time failing miserably , but I was free . He is the person I credit with much of my ambition .
I worked at an artist Run Centre called TRUCK in Calgary , supervised by the director , Renato Vitic . I was a handful still , but he helped me get a better sense of the possibility of being part of a non-commercial art scene . While at Truck , I met a wonderful artist , Jessica Thompson . She was an artist-inresidence with TRUCK . She showed me an art world that I hadn ’ t realized existed , that being the deeply inspiring and crisis-inducing field of Critical Theory . She forced me to apply to The University at Buffalo where I ’ d be able to study under two of my greatest influences , Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble , and Paul Vanouse . I scribbled my letter of intent while sleeping in a tent in a peanut allergy induced stupor while in New Zealand , never expecting to get in . When I arrived home to Canada , I received my acceptance letter .
After two unbelievably trying , inspiring , and deeply contemplative years , I completed my MFA having had the chance to work with Steve and Paul . They introduced me to integrating science , or at least ideas inspired by science , into my work . They really made me feel as though I had something to say as an artist , and to a lesser degree , a theorist . Grad school was my first taste of being part of a discourse so much bigger than myself , and my personal feeling and beliefs . I felt like a contributor to culture in some small way . And to me , making culture is what artists do . I had some MASSIVE failures in graduate school , and made a few works that I look back on a shake my head in disbelief that I could be so silly . I still have a ton to learn .
Now that I am the teacher , it is both terrifying , and incredibly satisfying . Paul once told me that “ You ’ ll always feel like a bit of an imposter as a professor .”, and it ’ s true . That said , no one inspires me to build more knowledge , and become more proficient than my students . They force me to be empathetic , self-reflexive , and curious . I love them . Teaching is the only thing I actually feel good at . There is nothing better than feeling the moment when a student realizes the power that art can hold . When they become aware of its ability to introduce people to new ways of thinking , and the possibility of it as a tool for building compassion and empathy , I feel moved and that I ’ m contributing to something far larger and more profound . I get that feeling of deep interconnectedness that I mentioned earlier . A feeling that few other experiences can elicit .
My students have moved me from a sort of selfish mode of making into a place of really wanting to make things that make people reconsider how they interact in the world , whether that world is physical or digital , or
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