About Carrie

Artist-researcher working within the disciplines of astronautics, planetary science, chemistry, narrative medicine, and bonsai.

I am an artist, writer/editor, publisher, and educator based in Los Angeles. My background is in literature theory, cultural criticism, and sculpture. I make conceptually-driven multidisciplinary and occasionally collaborative artwork at the nexus of science, art, and engineering; this has included installation, performance, text, drawing, and experiential, multi-sensory works often using fragrance.

I believe that an engagement with scientists and engineers through research, papers, lectures, models, and prototypes can facilitate broad interdisciplinary thinking about pressing issues and brings about fruitful conversations about the roles of art and science in shaping public discourse, especially within my interest in popular culture around space exploration and space technologies. Over the last twenty years, I have looked at machines and bioinformatics and their relationships to literature, the fraught gendered connections between technology and desire, and literature as a technology. My current and recent artwork engages the disciplines of astronautics, planetary sciences, organic chemistry, and bonsai design.

I have presented research and artwork at various space-related conferences including the International Astronautical Congresses in Glasgow and Toronto, the University of Bristol, and at a workshop-conference at the SETI Institute about messaging ET / active SETI. I have won over a dozen grants through my art and publishing activities, and in addition to my art, writing, and editing, I have taught visual culture classes, sculpture lab, introduction to contemporary art, master's level thesis classes, and undergraduate writing classes. Over the years I have collaborated with several scientists and engineers for artworks, papers, and presentations.

In August of 2013 I was awarded a US utility patent for an integral storage container comprised of multiple, concentric, but independent glass spheres that was fabricated by my co-inventor, Bob Maiden.

I am also a professional writer and editor. Essays, reviews and critical articles have been published in art and culture publications like SculptureFlash ArtX-TRAArtillery, and Artweek. Essays have been included in a few books, which I link to elsewhere on this site. My publishing company, DoppelHouse Press, specializes in art, architecture, music, and memoir and also publishes The Nomadic Journal.

contact: carriepaterson@gmail.com