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Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof

Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof

Technology in Practice
DepartmentImage Arts (Toronto Metropolitan University)
EducationBAA, Ryerson. MA, PhD, (Communication & Culture) York
Areas of ExpertiseArchives and Collections; Cultural Studies; Embodiment; Film and Media Studies; Media Arts; Media Ecology; Philosophy of Technology; Research-Creation and Media Practices

Dr. Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof is an artist-scholar whose research interests are interdisciplinary and probe the intersections of art, body, and technology. She is an award-winning media artist, and her films have been included in over 150 public presentations at major international film festivals, art museums, and centres, including Toronto International Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Sundance Film Festival, Guggenheim New York, Centre Pompidou, ZKM, and the Moving Image Museum. (For details and to view these works, visit https://vimeo.com/izabellapruskaoldenhof). Izabella is a co-founder of two successful artist collectives, Loop Collective (1996–2016, https://www.loopcollective.com/index.html) and The Decameron Collective (2020–present, https://www.decameroncollective.com), and her interest in collaborations between artists and scientists resulted in a co-authored book with Dr. Robert K. Logan (a physicist and media ecology scholar) titled A Topology of Mind: Spiral Thought Patterns, the Hyperlinking of Text, Ideas and More (Springer International, 2022).

Recent publications

Books

Robert K. Logan and Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof. A Topology of Mind: Spiral Thought Patterns, the Hyperlinking of Text, Ideas and More. Mathematics in Mind series. Springer International Publishing, 2022.

Book Chapters

Robert K. Logan and Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof. “The Topology of Mathematics in the Mind and Its Interaction with Verbal and Written Language.” Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Math Cognition. Marcel Danesi ed. Springer International Publishing, 2019. Pp. 195-212

 “Loïe Fuller’s Serpentines and Poetics of Self-abnegation in the Era of Electrotechnics,” Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies. Edited by Douglas Rosenberg. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Anthology Publication, 2016. 45-62.

“Loïe Fuller and the Poetics of Light, Colour, and Rhythm: Some Thoughts on the Making of fugitive l(i)ght,” Motion Pictures: Dance’s Duet with Camera. Edited by Ruth Barnes and Telory Davies. Palgrave Macmillan Press, 2016. 97-117.

Journal Publications

Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof and Robert K. Logan. “The Spiral Structure of Marshall McLuhan’s Thinking,” Philosophies Vol. 2, no. 2 (2017): 15 pages.

‘Man as the Medium’: McLuhan, Etrog, and Spiral Archetype,” Ultimate Reality and Meaning Journal (Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies in the Philosophy of Understanding) Vol. 34, No. 3-4 (2015): 257-266.

Sample of supervised ComCult projects:

SUPERVISIONS PhD

2020 – present - Azadeh Monzavi; research-creation (co-supervisor with Dr. Monique Tschofen)

2022 - present - Cody Rooney; research-creation

2023 - present - Shawn DeSouza-Coelho; research-creation

SUPERVISIONS MA

2012 - Dana Svistovitch; Project: Moments Under Dark: The Experience of The City at Night

2013 - Michelle Hannah; Project: In the Woods: Pathways of Perception

2013 - Cassandra Poley; Project: Sexually Transmitted Communication: Getting Between the Sheets with Technology

2014 - Lisa Hoffman; MRP: Coding for the Commons: The Emergence of Free and Open-Source Software for Disaster Relief

2014 - Peter Unwin; MRP: ‘The Black Liquor’ a Techno-poetics of Ink

2014 - Julia Gingrich; Project: From Here to There: Mythmaking and Cartographies of Quilting

2014 - Rekha Ramachandran; Project: Inter-Action: An Intermedia Representation of Self in Multicultural Environments

2014 - Paula John; Project: Joyce Wieland’s Gendered Nation: The Nation as Feminine versus Country as Masculine

2015 - Kathleen McLeod; Project: The Hand of a Dead Woman: Textile Illuminations and the Invisible Hands of Women in Late Nineteenth Century Astronomy and Culture

2015 - Vanessa Del Carpio; Project: Between Women and Fashion: Theorizing Forty-One (Her)stories of Female Pleasure, Experience, and Subjectivity in Dress

2016 - Katrina Orlowski; Project: Searching for Chaudière

2016 - Maria Cassasfranco; Project: Family Faces: Family Engagement in the Development of Tablet Applications for Facial Expression and Emotion Recognition for Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

2017- Sara Edwards; Project: Both Sides: Archiving the Found Family Photo

2019 - Nene Brody; Project: Mind & Matter: A Durational Performance Using Visualized, Sonified and Other Data Translation from Portable EEG Technologies in Mental and Physical Training

2022 - Isabel Inclan; Project: Raising Their Voices: Latin American Women in Canadian Politics

2022 - Nikole McGregor; Project: The Depths of a Story: Hyper-Haptic Immersion in a Volumetric Documentary

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Committee Member PhD

  1. 2012 - Kelly Egan (dissertation)
  2. 2015 - Zorianna Zurba (dissertation)
  3. 2017 - Alya Naumova (comps and dissertation)
  4. 2020 - Kyler Zeleny (comps and dissertation)

PhD Qualifying Examination (Comps) Committee  Only

  1. 2015 - Alanna McKnight (comps)
  2. 2016 - Walter Lai (comps )
  3. 2016 - Nathaniel Brunt (comps)
  4. 2020 - Craig Fahner (comps)
  5. 2020 - Andrey Miroshnichenko (comps)

In Progress

  1. Rawan Al-Wakeal (comps) 2021 - present
  2. Kristen Tollan (comps and dissertation) 2022 – present
  3. Alissa Novitchkova (comps) 2023 - present
  4. Blair Miller (comps) 2023 - present
  5. Iowyth Witteman (comps) 2023 - present

Committee Member MA

  1. 2010 - Jessie Koh; Project
  2. 2012 - Dan Browne; Project
  3. 2012 - Jessica Thorpe; Project
  4. 2012 - Lisa Dobbin; MRP
  5. 2013 - Tesni Ellis; Project
  6. 2013 - Victor Cirone; Project
  7. 2015 - Sasha Smith; Project
  8. 2016 - Frederique Bournot; Project
  9. 2016 - Amanda Wong; Project
  10. 2016 - Mahshid Rafiei; Project
  11. 2016 - Nathaniel Brunt; Project
  12. 2017 - Laura Flanagan; Project
  13. 2017 - Vanessa Ciccone; Project
  14. 2017 - Ivona Jozinovic; Project
  15. 2017 - Tatyana Terzopoulos; Project
  16. 2017 - Laura Fox; Project
  17. 2018 - Emma Sharpe; Project
  18. 2018 - Joel Benard; Project
  19. 2019 - Sula Sidnell; Project
  20. 2019 - Rawan Al-Wakeal; Project
  21. 2020 - Deepa Venkatesan; Project
  22. 2020 - Preethi Jagadeesh; Project
  23. 2020 - Lucy Wowk; Project
  24. 2020 - Cody Rooney; Project
  25. 2021 - Meng Jian; Project

ComCult Teaching Activities

  • CC9904 – PhD Perspectives in Communication and Culture
  • CC8960 – Advanced Communication Technology
  • CC8987 – Topics in Technology in Practice: Making Culture Public & Private
  • CC8906 – Communication and Culture: An Interdisciplinary Approach
  • CC8982 – The Body and the Culture of Modernity
  • CC 8903 – MA Seminar: Research and Practice
  • CC 8836 – Topics in Media and Culture: The Body as Medium
  • CC 8900 - Core Issues: Cultural Studies