Bryce Heesacker joins IDRH as Hall Center Applied Humanities Fellow


Bryce Heesacker (creating work under the moniker F. C. Zuke) is an MFA candidate in Expanded Media and will be joining IDRH this summer as a Hall Center Applied Humanities Summer Fellow. Some of his work with IDRH involves web development, creating a database of IDRH projects, and working with IDRH staff to coordinate the 2019 Digital Humanities Forum in the fall. He was previously the 2017-2018 Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Research Fellow for the Integrated Arts Research Initiative at the Spencer Museum of Art. His work with IARI included coordinating interdisciplinary programs and producing audio interviews and short-format documentaries. Bryce is currently an instructor in the Department of Visual Art, where he teaches Fundamentals of Expanded Media, a course that introduces students to aspects of video, sound, installation, digital image, performance, and research-based art practices.

In his artistic practice, he is concerned with creating experiences that involve sound, video, light (or darkness), and unique opportunities for visitors to interact with each other, objects, interfaces, and spaces. He utilizes emergent technologies to create works that respond to viewers, that give the audience control, and that seem to have agency themselves. These interactions often cause visitors to question the impact that their actions have on particular systems, such as systems of power, control, evaluation, classification, or epistemology. Art and music organizations in the United States, Europe, and Asia have performed and exhibited his works.

“In my work, I want to put people inside of a system; a system that is alive, moving, and listening or watching or waiting to see what the visitors are going to do. I think by setting up such scenarios, my audience not only sees a system represented, but they also experience it. They literally see and hear and feel how it reacts to their presence. And I think this visceral nature of my work makes the interaction with these systems more memorable and makes the presence of these systems more recognizable when they appear in the world.”