Larry Shea is an artist and educator working with a wide variety of digital and analog media, creating artworks and developing new media technologies for live events. Larry enjoys working in creative teams, merging technical possibilities with aesthetic and political concerns, creating layered and meaningful experiences. Some highlights include Julia Scher’s surveillance art installations in the late 90’s, Mary-Ellen Strom & Ann Carlson’s Montana train ride projection performance Geyserland, 2003; and recently The Builders Association’s Elements of Oz.
He is currently developing a series of geolocational experiences exploring the social, political, economic, industrial, and cultural development of Pittsburgh PA called Ghosts in the Machine. Psychogeographic in ethos, these experiences weave publicly available data and deep research into art interpretations or “story-events,” connected by location and meaning, that are both stand-alone experiences as well as doorways to further avenues for exploration. This is a mobile device-based AR system for “temporal wayfinding,” allowing users to gain a deeper sense of place as they go about their daily lives.
Larry holds an MFA from The Massachusetts College of Art, and a BA from the University of Virginia. From 2003-2005 he was Executive Director of the internationally acclaimed, MIX: the New York Lesbian and Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival in New York. Shea is currently an Associate Professor of Video & Media Design in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he founded and runs the Video & Media Design MFA program.