Laptop Science Alumna Lina Kogan Blends Artwork with Expertise in New Exhibit – USC Viterbi

USC college students and college gathered within the USC Michelson Middle for Convergent Bioscience Jan. 25 for “Present,” the exhibition of Ukrainian-born artist, pc scientist, and USC Viterbi alumna Lina Kogan, who graduated in 2000 with a grasp’s diploma in pc science and multimedia and artistic applied sciences. Her work combines minimalism with computer systems—actually. Laptop chips, keyboard keys and wires weave their means all through Kogan’s works, bringing a distinctly technological look to the canvases.

Kogan, additionally knowledgeable pc scientist, merges artwork and expertise in her items as a matter of behavior. The bits of tech embedded in canvases all through the room are allegories to her previous, pastiches of her expertise rising up within the Japanese Bloc.

Again in Kyiv, Kogan went to artwork college as a toddler. Nonetheless, when it got here time to depart for school, her mother and father pushed her in the direction of a technical diploma—engineering, pc science—as a result of she’d proven an inherent ability for math.

“I liked portray and creating from an early age,” Kogan stated. “However I used to be type of steered away from it— away from artwork.”

When Kogan got here to the USA in 1992 at 20 years outdated to proceed her training, this ardour was nonetheless alive and properly. Whereas working in the direction of her grasp’s diploma at USC, she additionally took on ceramics, drawing, portray and sculpture courses along with her programs, cultivating an curiosity in sculpture and reigniting her fervor for creating.

“I simply liked the three-dimensional a part of it,” Kogan stated. “I used to be creating once more, sculptures and ceramic artwork, and that’s how all this began.”

Since 2005, Kogan has been exhibiting her work at museums, artwork galleries and auctions, all of the whereas working full-time in Data Expertise with Aerojet Rocketdyne.

Supply Code What do you Hear

The title of the exhibition, “Present,” could be very related to a particular piece, in accordance with Kogan. She confirmed the piece, titled “Supply Code What do you Hear,” throughout her presentation at first of the occasion alongside the definition of ‘Present,’ highlighting the truth that it refers to each a second in time and {an electrical} cost. The titular work is awash with an intense purple hue that sinks to the underside of the canvas and is interspersed with keys, metallic piping, and an archaic-looking pc punch card.

“It goes again to the historical past of computing. I received that card from the Museum of the Historical past of Computing in Santa Clara,” Kogan stated. “It’s symbolic to me, as a result of my mother used punch playing cards at her job as a software program engineer and would convey them again, to Kyiv. It’s very generational; How can we reply to occasions from the previous? How does that translate to as we speak? What’s the connection between outdated and new?”

The keys on the backside appear at a look to be random letters strung collectively, however actually spell the Slavic phrase for ear within the Cyrillic alphabet, yxo, bringing an additional that means to the assorted bits and baubles.

“The title is self-explanatory; typically messages get misplaced in translation,” Kogan stated. “Generally expertise helps us get the message throughout, however different instances we’re so bombarded by numerous stimuli from this expertise that it could possibly make us lose focus, and we would miss necessary messages due to that.”

Panorama

One other high-profile piece of Kogan’s is Panorama, emblazoned within the colours of the Ukranian flag with a splash of intense purple close to the topmost left nook. The bodily canvas is a stout 40 by 40, a menagerie of harsh traces and metallic surfaces. Kogan used bullets and different items of {hardware} to create the feel, a haunting impact that underscores the brutality of the scenario in her residence nation.

“Because the warfare broke out, I began to see a number of artists emphasize Ukraine, notably by portray sunflowers. At first, I assumed this was not a lot my type, and the flag colours weren’t my palette,” Kogan stated. ”However the warfare went on—a day, to every week, to a month—and as I used to be processing what was occurring, I spotted I needed to do one thing to specific all of my feelings in regards to the injustice and absurdity of the scenario. That piece simply type of got here out, despite the fact that I didn’t plan it.”

Inside a month and a half of the warfare’s outbreak, the piece was accomplished, and promptly featured in fundraisers and artwork exhibits to lift funds for Ukraine. The portray was bought to a collector within the Bay Space, and Kogan donated the proceeds from the sale to NovaUkraine and Save The Kids Ukraine.

“I used to be overwhelmed by the assist of different artists that simply needed to donate their items to be part of that public sale,” Kogan stated. “We had an entire sequence of exhibitions in July.”

Kogan is grateful for the chance to make use of the exhibition at USC to lift consciousness and showcase her artwork to a neighborhood that she was as soon as part of, one thing she believes goes above and past simply monetary assist for humanitarian help for the warfare.

“It was a really, very private expertise for me, particularly as a result of there have been so many various sorts of individuals there, from the pc science division to these finding out Russia and Ukraine,” Kogan stated. “Each got here up and talked to me after the exhibition, and so many individuals recognized with these two sides converging, that artistic aspect and that technical aspect. I used to be notably touched by a younger woman in the identical boat as me, who needed to be an artist however is finding out pc science per her household’s recommendation. I used to be pleased that my instance confirmed her that it’s potential to proceed on each paths with out compromising both.”

The exhibition closed with a poem of hers, accompanied by one other piece, Cloud Computing:

Milky clouds dissipate to disclose

The earth painted over,

patched, weathered and peeled

Construct your bubble on the clouds,

metallic fluffy clouds wired

with silver lining of rain 🌧️

Bubble into your Scantron

Random solutions you already know

That bubble as much as the floor,

Come on, use your mind!  🧠

Messages are encrypted

In safe connections you made

Your magnet attracts

All you needed to listen to

All you needed conveyed

Life computes the way in which you want to really feel

In your clear fragile bubble

On the shiny brittle shifting cloud

With a compelling magnetic discipline.

Printed on March tenth, 2023

Final up to date on March tenth, 2023