Jack Straw New Media Gallery

Joe Diebes (b. 1972) creates works that converge around the categories of concert music, installations, and conceptual art. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale in 1995, where he studied composition formally with Jonathan Berger and Michael Tenzer while pursuing a degree in Literature and Philosophy. He also studied at Juilliard with Stanley Wolfe and privately with La Monte Young. He is a principal member of the performance/art company Gale Gates et al, and has collaborated with theater artists such as The Living Theater, George Coates Performance Works, Phil Soltanoff and Deb Fernandez, presenting work at the Kitchen, The Whitney Museum, the Ontologic Theater, the Williamstown Theater Festival, and the Belgrade International Theater Festival. He has received residencies and commissions from Music at the Anthology, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Engine 27, NY State Council on the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

New Media Gallery 2004-05: String Quartet No. 2

Kristin Tollefson has an MFA in Metalsmithing from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and a BA in Anthropology/Sociology and Art History from Carleton College in Minnesota. She draws particular influence for her work from plant forms and working with her hands, and makes art ranging in scope from jewelry to large-scale public artworks.

Kristin has received grants and awards from Fulbright, The American-Scandinavian Foundation, Bainbridge Arts & Humanities Council, Artist Trust, and Jack Straw, among others. She has lived and traveled extensively in Iceland, experiences that continue to strongly influence her work. Her sculptural work out of wire has been featured in Fiberarts Design Book 7 and the Spring 2004 issue of Metalsmith Magazine, and she is currently developing a large-scale public art commission for the Montlake Community Center. Kristin grew up on Bainbridge Island, where she now raises her two children and runs flora/form, a business specializing in design, illustration, fabrication, and consulting on a variety of art and garden related projects.

New Media Gallery 2004-05: Organic Plan

Rene Yung is a San Francisco-based installation artist, designer, and writer, who explores issues of culture and identity through multi-layered works, often combining imagery and text. A native of Hong Kong, Yung investigates the transcultural experience by deploying a broad range of information and production systems, to question assumptions about culture and community.

Yung has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at “TransCulture,” part of the 1995 Venice Biennale; the Contemporary Art Museum, Houston, Texas; Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; and San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose. She has conducted numerous community cultural development projects involving diverse, cross-generational populations, and has received public art commissions from agencies including the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, City of Oakland, the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, and Wing Luke Asian Museum, Seattle. She sees her total art practice as a multi-faceted whole comprising these related areas of investigation.

Yung has received support through grants and residencies from the Creative Work Fund, California Art Council, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, the Hedgebrook Writer’s Residency Program, the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Goldman Institute on Aging, and Headlands Center for the Arts.

New Media Gallery 2004-05: The Four Dignities

Janice Giteck (born New York, 1946) is a composer of music for concert, multi-media, dance and theater. Her work is most celebrated for its visceral connection to social issues, and is inspired by a variety of musical traditions. Giteck currently lives on Whidbey Island, Northwest of Seattle. From 1979-2016 she was a professor at Cornish College of the Arts teaching music and classes focused on how artists respond to their social environments.

Giteck’s concert music is known internationally, and includes being the first woman commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, with Edo deWaart (1981) for TREE. She held a Meet The Composer residency (1998-2000) in Seattle in collaboration with Jack Straw Cultural Center, producing two major works: Tikkun-Mending for tenor and orchestra; and Navigating the Light for concert soprano, jazz alto, and chamber orchestra, based on the lives of inmates at Echo Glen Children’s Center (Washington State Correctional Center). In 2004 Ishi (Yahi for ‘man’) was premiered by the Seattle Chamber Players; and in 2005 She Who Dances Through the Sky was premiered by the Esoterics (a capella ensemble), In a Camel’s Ear for 9 flutes, 2005; Snow Mandala for Jane Harty, 2007; and Tara’s Love Will Melt the Sword for Vicky Ray, 2003, both for solo piano; Where Can You Live Safely Then? In Surrender and Ricercare (Dream Upon Arrival) for the Saint Helens String Quartet, 2004, 2012 respectively.

Janice Giteck has scored the music for six award-winning feature documentaries including Emiko Omori’s Rabbit in the Moon (Sundance, Emmy Awards-1999) – recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center; Johnny Simon’s Daddy and Pappa, 2001; Katie Jennings’s Teachings of the Tree People, 2007; and three films by Pat Ferrero: Hopi, Songs of the Fourth World, 1985; Hearts and Hands, 1988; and Yield to Total Elation, 2000, the latter recorded at Jack Straw Cultural Center. She has also scored as series of films for IslandWood (Environmental Learning Center) Washington, supported by National Geographic and National Science Institute.

Janice Giteck holds BA, MA in Composition from Mills College (1969) and an MA in Psychology from Antioch University (1986). She attended the Paris Conservatory and primary teachers include composers Darius Milhaud, Olivier Messiaen, and pianist Rebecca Weinstock. She also studied West African percussion with Obo Addy, and Javanese Gamelan with Daniel Schmidt.

Composer in Residence 1998 – 2000: Janice Giteck composed and recorded a series of original work in collaboration with Jack Straw Cultural Center through the national Meet the Composer program, including Tikkun-Mending (premiered by Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra), Yield to Total Elation (film score for Pat Ferrero directed film) and Rabbit in the Moon (film score for Emiko Omori’s documentary of the same name). She also conducted youth music workshops in Northwest School for ESL students, and at Alternative School for third through eighth grade classes. These workshops resulted in original compositions Go Gently into that Good Dawn, Origin Quilt and Navigating the Light, the latter based on material gathered from music and poetry workshops co-conducted with Judith Roche with teenage girls at Echo Glen Children’s Center.

Tania Kupczak is a Seattle-based media artist.

“I’m a discourse surfer in theater, film, and visual art. The natural sciences are my first love. I make graphics and set decorate for motion pictures and design/build sets for live performance. I draw and paint, and have started to learn how to bend neon. I enjoy collaboration. I work toward abolition and mutual aid. I am easily seduced by the luminous. I live on unceded Duwamish and Coast Salish land in what is now Seattle.”

New Media Gallery 2004-05: Maps&Legends