Graduate student’s exhibit creates ‘symphony’ of art, tech

Terms like “right-brained” and “left-brained” fall short when used to define Design | Media Arts graduate student Neil Mendoza.

As part of the Design | Media Arts department, Mendoza said he uses his background in technology to create innovative art pieces that seek to give new meaning to notions of form and space.

Mendoza’s exhibit, “The Electric Knife Orchestra” will be shown at the Broad Art Center starting Tuesday as part of the Design | Media Arts MFA solo exhibition series.

In the years after his schooling at Oxford University, Mendoza worked as a programmer and analyst. He has created installations and written software for clients including Accenture, Arcade Studios, Audi, Bentley, Brother, Burton Snowboards, Doritos, Ford, HTC, Swatch and Wired Magazine.

After earning a masters in math and computer science at Oxford University, Mendoza said he felt a pull to begin exploring technology’s ability to aid in the human experience.

His work with machines, Mendoza said, inspired him to pursue more artistic endeavors. Mendoza is now what the art world refers to as a “creative technologist.” While Mendoza is still coding and manipulating technology, he said he now does so with artistic intent. He said he has decided to seek out further schooling in order to pursue his artistic vision.

“I was already making art and working, but it seemed time to give my work a bit of credibility by going back to school,” Mendoza said.

Theo Triantafyllidis, a fellow Design | Media Arts graduate student, said Mendoza’s decision did not come easy.

“I think for (Mendoza), coming back to school, because of the fact that he had already found a great deal of success as an artist, was a hard but wise choice,” Triantafyllidis said.

In 2013, Mendoza co-founded the art collective “Is This Good?,” a London-based group that defines itself as “a collective of artists and geeks.” Although the four members collectively hold six masters degrees in the sciences, Mendoza said they have devoted their talents to creating tech-oriented art that redefines conceptions of how people can interact with the world around them.

In one project, the team made a Schwartz Flavour Shots commercial in which they blew up dozens of bags of spices in slow-motion, synced to a classical composition by MJ Cole. Another featured MIDI-controlled orchestra made of Brother brand printers and peripherals used to perform a cover of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” The constant, Mendoza said, is that he and his colleagues seek to find creative potential in the objects that surround us on a daily basis, things that other people consider “junk.”

“Los Angeles is great for that, there’s a whole lot more junk to work with; things that other people don’t really think about,” Mendoza said.

While Mendoza said he has no technical background in music in the same way that he had no technical background in art prior to his schooling at UCLA, Mendoza frequently incorporates sound and song into his work.

“I did a bit of production work back in the day, and DJ’d a bit. I even performed at a few festivals, but I wouldn’t call myself a musician,” Mendoza said.

Nonetheless, Mendoza said his solo exhibition will incorporate music.

“I guess I’d call it a dangerous symphony of machines,” Mendoza said.

Mendoza said he wants audiences to experience the exhibition in person to fully experience the effect rather than reveal any details beforehand. In the past, Mendoza said his work has featured everything from motion sensor technology and holograms to explosives and live performance.

Fellow Design | Media Arts graduate student Aliah Magdalena Dark said she believes that ironic humor is an internal part of Mendoza’s art.

“(Mendoza) creates these great machines and feats of robotics, which are at the same time terrifying and inviting,” Dark said.

Above all else however, Triantafyllidis said, Mendoza’s work shows a clear desire to explore new fields whether it be in art or programing.

“(Mendoza) is usually starting from an idea that he finds technically challenging or interesting to explore,” Triantafyllidis said. “He then painstakingly, often from scratch, creates the technological framework to make it work and realize his vision without compromise.”