Jeffrey Scudder, assistant professor of art at Southern Oregon University, creates dynamic presentations with exquisite imagery for his lectures and performances. An internationally known figure in the art world, Scudder holds a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Yale University. He teaches in SOU’s Emerging Media and Digital Arts program, telling stories with pen and paper, while instantaneously capturing and creating post-expressionist images, with a host of newly developed computer software. We met at Case Coffee Roasters on Siskiyou Boulevard.EH: Tell me about your productions.
JS: Since I come from computer art, I do a lot of performance without computers, a lot of drawing and telling stories. I transform things. I change from one image to another: A morphing image with a morphing story. Lately, I have been doing a lot of drawing with sound. Performing while drawing and talking simultaneously. These are modernist ideas of connecting drawing and sound.
Sometimes in order to understand what’s happening with computers or technology, you have to use a different medium to describe it. You want it to be in the background so that you can focus on the conversation.
People don’t usually think of computer art as something that requires a physical presence. I’m spearheading a movement to create more intimacy through computer art. I’m often drawing on paper, but I’m talking about video games. I am creating a form of intimacy by not actually playing the video game. Instead I’m talking about ideas using another medium.
When I perform, I like to create a setting, like a chamber music performance. I use a lot of candles, there’s music playing, sometimes snacks. I like the audience to feel that they are part of the action so that people feel at ease, so that they are ready to take in images and let things happen.
Ashland Theatre 