steven ciampaglia

Art + Media

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About

Dr. Steven Ciampaglia is a new media community artist and the Champney Family Endowed Associate Professor of Art at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art. His creative and research areas include critical theory/pedagogy, community art/socially engaged art, media art, art + technology, visual cultural studies, emerging literacies, public humanities, curriculum development, and teacher licensure. He has presented his artwork and research at MIT, Stanford University, and Columbia University. He has been published in the Harvard Educational Review, Studies in Art Education, and the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education.

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Dr. Ciampaglia is the Co-Founder  of the Plug-In Studio. The Plug-In Studio (Steven Ciampaglia + Kerry Richardson) is a socially engaged new media art collective that collaborates with people from groups historically underrepresented in the art world.

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Discharged is featured in the Reinberger Gallery's FREE PLAY exhibition. We are also participating in panel discussion with other artists featured in the show on Friday, Nov 7 at the Cleveland Institute of Art's Cinematheque.

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Discharged will be featured in LIKELIKE gallery's 4th of July show.

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War Games: Tactical Media surveys the longstanding and tangled relationship between videogames and the US military. The first videogame, Spacewar!, was created by computer researchers at MIT in 1962 using nascent computer technology funded by the US Department of Defense. Since then, the commercial videogame industry has grown in tandem with—and partly thanks to—the US military’s development of computer and digital technologies.

Unsurprisingly, military-themed videogames have come to dominate the gaming industry and gamer culture. The ubiquity of these games has facilitated the US military’s public relations and recruitment efforts. Games such as America’s Army and Call of Duty present glamorized depictions of armed combat and military culture that appeal to gamers, including young ones. Ironically, enlistees are trained for actual warfare using simulations that are nearly indistinguishable from the games they grew up playing. The line between “real” and “virtual” combat has become blurred. As war is conflated with fun and games, moral and ethical concerns are eclipsed.

This exhibition invites you to explore this history through an extensive media archive. Watch interviews with game developers and military personnel, view footage of soldiers training in cutting-edge VR gaming simulations and see how the military uses esports tournaments to insinuate itself into youth culture. Examine the connection between videogames and the military in the popular imagination through vintage and contemporary game commercials, user-generated content from social media and excerpts from Hollywood movies. Play examples of military-themed videogames including the latest entry in the blockbuster Call of Duty franchise and Discharged, an artist-made arcade game that critiques the US military’s use of videogames to recruit teens. Exhibition is intended for mature audiences; viewer discretion is advised.

Curated by the Plug-in Studio [Kerry Richardson + Steve Ciampaglia] February 9 - April 26, 2024

Sears think[box] Gallery Richey Mixon Building, 1st Floor Hours: M-F 12 - 5 pm Case Western Reserve University 11201 Cedar Ave. Cleveland OH Contact: The Plug-in Studio [email protected] pluginstudio.net

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War Games: Tactical Media Exhibition at CWRU Sears think[box] open until April 26, 2024

Discharged videogame and cabinet by warGames Tactical Media Collective (Kerry Richardson, Eric J. Garcia, and Steve Ciampaglia)

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Aim High - Ogden Contemporary Arts

This May, Ogden Contemporary Arts presents a solo exhibition for New Mexico artist Eric J. García, the non-profit’s 2023 Artist-in-Residence

The Discharged videogames is on display at Ogden Fine Arts as part of Eric J. Garcia's Aim High exhibition.

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The Plug-In Studio (Steve Ciampaglia + Kerry Richardson) are currently collaborating with artist and US military veteran Eric J. Garcia on the warGames Tactical Media Collective project. The primary product of the collaboration is the videogame Discharged, which explores the real-life consequences of serving, critiques the glamorized depiction of military combat featured in commercial videogames such as Call of Duty, and criticizes the military’s use of videogames to recruit teens from low-income, Latinx households. The project also involves collaborating with teens from the historically Mexican-American community of Pilsen in Chicago on the creation of several additional mini-videogames that critically explore the teens’ feelings about being targeted by military recruiters and the role of the military in their community.

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The Plug-In Studio awarded IAC Fellowship in Interdisciplinary/Computer- Based Arts

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A preview of the Discharged videogame is on exhibit at the NIU Art Museum.

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A preview of the Discharged game was featured in Eric J. Garcia’s exhibition at the DePaul Art Museum. 

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Steve Ciampaglia + Kerry Richardson gave an artist’s talk and conducted an ArtMakerSpace as part of their visiting artist residency at the University of Illinois’ School of Art + Design. 

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A short film about the Plug-In Studio’s Street Arcade produced by A Blade of Grass and Rava Films

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The Plug-In Studio (Steve Ciampaglia + Kerry Richardson) are a 2016 Propeller Fund Awardee. The award will fund their current collaboration with artist and US military veteran Eric J. Garcia on the warGames Tactical Media Collective project.