Diana Thater

During the inaugural year of ART on THE MART, the largest digital art projection in the world, pioneering new media artist Diana Thater presented a program of digital artworks, entitled True Life Adventures, which explored the plight of animals living in imminent danger of poaching in Kenya. In scaling images of flora and fauna to the size of THE MART’s impressive 2.5-acre façade, Thater explored the intersection between the time-based and spatial dimensions of moving images, transporting visitors along the Chicago Riverwalk to another world. A soundtrack that was recorded live in Kenya accompanied the work to further explore the exotic but peaceful story of elephants, zebras, and giraffe in their native habitat.

Since the early 1990s, Diana Thater has created pioneering film, video, and installation-based works. Her primary emphasis is on the tension between the natural environment and mediated reality, and by extension, between tamed and wild, and science and magic. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including literature, animal behavior, mathematics, chess, and sociology, her evocative and sometimes near-abstract works interact with their surroundings to create an intricate relationship between time-based and spatial dimensions. She frequently transforms exhibition venues into hybrid spaces between sculpture and architecture, using color and light.