Lisa Moren is the new Director of the IRC and a Professor of Intermedia in the Department of Visual Arts. She acquired national and international prominence for integrating emerging media technology, data-driven narratives, organic pigments on paper, bio-matter, and public space in her creative works. She is credited with producing a pioneering virtual reality project, Practically Tender (1991). A leader in the field of bio-art, her research has resulted in collaborative partnerships with scholars at other institutions including Johns Hopkins University, where she was a Fellow in Film and Media funded through the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund (2016/2020). As the inaugural artist-in-residence (2019) at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology (IMET), she collaborated with scientist colleagues to produce a major work, What is the Shape of Water? (2019-2024) and Under the Bay (2022-2024) an AR/XR work available on IOS and Google Play.
A multi-year recipient of Maryland State Arts Council grants, a National Endowment for the Arts recipient (2004) and a Fulbright Scholar (2006), Professor Moren has exhibited her work in over a hundred solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally in North America, Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia, at venues including the Chelsea Art Museum, Cranbrook Art Museum (USA), Ars Electronica (Austria), Akademie der Kunste (Germany), the Artists Research Network (Australia), and uShaka Marine Museum (South Africa). Her three monographs include Command Z: Artists Working with Phenomena and Technology. As well, she has published an edited book, three book chapters, four journal articles including Algorithmic Pollution: Artists working with Dataveillance and Societies of Control, and numerous catalogs, conference proceedings, and media works. She also serves as an Advisory Board Member of ISEA, the International Symposium on Electronic Art.
Professor Moren is part of a generation of artists who built the first B.F.A. and M.F.A. programs in digital art, intermedia, and technology within a studio art practice. Professor Moren’s core teaching philosophy follows UMBC’s vision of inclusive excellence that solutions in any field depend on the convergence of diverse inter-generations, races, cultures, and technologies, allowing for the emergence of new creative forms.
