California Institute of Integral Studies
Faculty Member, School of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies
About
As an artist and scholar, my work is interdisciplinary and falls within the realms of Cultural Studies. My subject matter is the familiar, the everyday, whether it is the everyday attitudes and practices of white people, everyday speech referring to dogs, or everyday visual experiences that fill our lives such as the browser that “takes” us to web sites or the visual signifiers of race. While the work comes in various forms—presentations, essays, research reports, or new media artwork—the objectives are similar. I seek to challenge my viewer or reader to see these phenomena anew. I bring attention to experiences that are so familiar as to be rendered invisible and make them strange and unfamiliar by exposing something about them that causes the audience to reconsider their significance. It is this reconsideration that offers the possibility for new and creative solutions, or perhaps more fundamentally that creates the conditions for constructive change. With this as the end in sight, I prefer participatory and interactive forms such as workshops or dynamic interactive web sites that engage my audience personally.
As an educator, I am guided by a similar sensibility. Fundamental to my practice is a commitment to assisting students to develop the skills of examining hidden assumptions, whether their own or those contained in our readings, conversations, and curriculum. Interactive practices are central to my classroom work and my dialogic response to student work. Again, my purpose is to empower students as the agents of their own learning, especially in identifying new perspectives.
Contact Information
http://www.iconoclastic.net/amacleod/
1453 Mission Street
San Francisco, California 94103
415 575 6287
