Claremont, Calif. (December 16, 2016)—Pitzer College Professor of Media Studies Ming-Yuen S. Ma has been awarded a 2016 Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, which recognizes writers who address issues in contemporary visual art. The grant will support the research and development of Ma’s forthcoming book, There is No Soundtrack: Theorizing Aural Cultures Through Experimental Media Art.
In There is No Soundtrack, Ma explores the relationships between sound culture, critical theory and experimental media art. He analyses how the aural and visual elements interact and produce meaning, drawing from works by contemporary media artists. There is No Soundtrack argues that experimental media art produces audio-visual relationships that challenge and destabilize the visually dominated field of art history, art criticism, cinema and media studies, and cultural studies.
Ming-Yuen S. Ma is the co-editor of Resolutions 3: Global Networks of Video, which won the 2014 Best Edited Volume Award from Society of Cinema and Media Studies. He also co-edited, with Pitzer College Professor of Media Studies Alexandra Juhasz, the Moving Image Review of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies. An experimental media artist, Ma has produced numerous videos and installations, including the “ReCut Project” (2006), “THIS IS NOT A FOREIGN FILM” (2002), “Xin Lu Project” (1997-present), “Sniff” (1997), “Slanted Vision” (1995) and “Toc Storee” (1992). His work has been shown nationally and internationally.
Ma teaches courses on sound culture and experimental media as well as on feminist and queer issues in production, theory and history at Pitzer College. His recent courses include Experimental Media Studio, Film Sound and Asian American Media in Communities. He is the co-chair of Intercollegiate Media Studies program and a core faculty member in the Intercollegiate Department of Asian American Studies at The Claremont Colleges. He earned his BA from Columbia University and his MFA from California Institute of the Arts.
The Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program awarded 20 individual 2016 grants, ranging from $15,000 to $50,000, to writers in four categories: books, articles, short-form and blogs. The Arts Writers Grant Program aims to ensure that “critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts.”
