Kalman Spelletich
Kal Spelletich
(b. 1960, Davenport, Ia)
Spelletich has been a pivotal figure in the machine art and robotics community and frequently collaborates with scientists, engineers, musicians and audiences. His work is performative and interactive and requires the participation of viewers, inspiring social engagement both inside the gallery and outside in the world. It sometimes combines art and mysticism with the rigors of science, technology, sound, light and meditative practices through an unlikely form, robots.
The work raises open-ended questions about the dominant economic producers of technology, the interplay of technology and spirituality, the role of the collective in capitalism and economic and educational privilege. Technology and robotics are becoming ubiquitous. Kal questions the values, roles, and norms inherent in how our culture develops, applies, and uses technology. He is an anarchist, activist, guerrilla gardener and educator. Some of his primary issues are investigating how to see these times we live in and developing the means to create a different world.
Born and raised in Davenport, Iowa, the seventh of nine children. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa, and an M.F.A. from The University of Texas at Austin, both in the field of Media Art. He has performed, exhibited and lectured worldwide, collaborating with scientists, musicians, and politicians. Spelletich’s work has been included in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions over the past three decades, including the De Young Museum, SFMOMA, The Exploratorium Museum and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, S.F., Ca., California Folk Art Museum, L.A., Ca., Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, Ca., and Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin, Ca. He has exhibited internationally in Namibia, India, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, France, Czech Republic, Holland, England, Slovakia, Austria and the ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany to name a few.
Spelletich lives and works in San Francisco, California.