Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Alan Strathmann is an inter-disciplinary artist now working and living in Chicago. In 2008, his aeroponic sculpture "HiTek Lawn" 'lived' at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum as part of the Lawn Nation Project. As part of this multi-artist showcase focused on the history and evolution of the American lawn, Alan's work directed attention to issues surrounding our dependencies as a society on technology and to the lengths to which we may go to obtain sensory and aesthetic gratification.

Working in sound, performance and video installation, Alan earned a BFA in Digital and Experimental Art from the University of Washington and then moved to the Midwest where he received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago studying new media art under the tutelage of Nic Collins and Eduardo Kac. Alan's work constructs or utilizes systems that are technological extensions, and addresses these human-machine engagements as part of the evolution of our interaction with the natural world. By the illumination or appropriation of phenomena these projects foreground the qualities of culture that have become increasingly hybridized or cybernetic.

Alan is currently teaching part-time at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in Art & Technology Studies and at the Chicago Filmmaker's Co-operative in field sound recording. Alan's undergraduate seminar, Chimeric Practices: Art & Science: Hybrid Ways of Knowing, (co-taught with biologist Andrew Yang at SAIC) brought together collaborative groups of students to develop artistic ventures derived from research into contemporary scientific discoveries.

For more information on Alan and his work, please visit: www.alanstrathmann.com

My time at Blue Sky was certainly influential and rewarding. As collaboration the project functioned in ways that I would not have predicted. Critical thinking, group discussion and action throughout our time together created an environment that was both engaging and challenging. Working with a group in this fashion prompted me to engage more openly with concepts at every level through formulation and implementation and for me these parts of the process are usually done in relative isolation. This interaction yielded not only a successful project, but also a close examination of my own process and an intense introduction for the group into conceptual art making through the use of a variety of tools.

The residency, at its new home at the University of Dayton also afforded me the opportunity to work with esteemed professors and professionals at the school and in the surrounding area. For myself this was a rare chance to meet and collaborate with talented and interested parties towards a larger more ambitious project and build relationships with future research in mind. This also provided me with the chance to implement ideas and ways of working that I had not previously been able to, and this proved to be fortuitous and exciting.