Liz Blum

Born in London, to parents of wolf descent she traveled to the US after completing her undergraduate study in fine art to engage in the practice of societal impregnation among New Yorkers living in the east village. "Lickspittle"* was the first series of works to result from this research. After a short term stay in several ashrams located along the East river she decided to embark on her first pivotal performance of making her way to Upstate, New York, shuffling on her bum. As expected after such a grueling piece, her behind had gained enormous prominence and tone, enabling her to double as Jennifer Lopez, in such films as "Selena" and "Anaconda". Funds from these movies allowed her to return to her fine arts studies and gain a masters in panting, or was it painting. Anyway, not content to keep within the confines of this discipline, Blum started to explore the realms of body art in a manner the art world had not yet witnessed. Over a period of five years she had collected lint from the navels of children from a small rural community in Columbia County, New York, that culminated as a large fluffy ball, installed at the Dia foundation, New York, 1998. Her academic research argues that this deceptively simple stuff provides a vehicle for artistic expression in which the persistence of materiality is fore grounded, as is the gap between intent and effect, which is an inevitable product of the body process. As well as producing experimental computer art and computer games she has published several interactive CD-Roms and exhibited numerous digital installations included at Uranus Electronica, Gasgon Gallery of Modern Art, Austria, the ICU, London, the BarbiKen Gallery, London and the Big Dom, New York. Her book The Post-Coital Cleanup was first published in 1995 and has recently been published in a new edition with the subtitle, Consciousness in Cleanliness. Her second book The Postdigital Finger was a collaboration with Mickey Font and published in 2000.  She has spoken and lectured widely on art, philosophy, new clothes and is currently a lecturer at RPI, Troy and other institutions in the area. She is Associate Editor for Barking Review, a weekly dog magazine and is a regular contributor to Pigeon Fanciers. Liz Blum lives with residue in Troy, New York.