Intro. Digital Media Art: Sonya Rapoport

Sonya Rapoport was born on October 6, 1923 in Boston, Massachusetts. She has studied a variety of topics at a variety of schools. Rapoport first began attending classes at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Later, she studied at the Massachusetts College of Art for two years. She later ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Boston University. After this, Rapoport received a B.A. in Labor Economics from New York University, studied figurative art and oil painting at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington D.C., and finally got a master’s degree in art from the University of California, Berkeley. Her art has been shown around the world from Brazil to France. Her earlier work in painting seems to explore the abstracted form of the human figure. In the 1970’s her work shifted and she became more interested in electronic media. She is a multi-media artist, but became known for her influential work in the realm of computer based art.

Her work has a strong element of both natural and social sciences. Rapoport’s background in Biology is very evident throughout many of here pieces. She adds a more personal aspect to science and technology. Her work adopts pieces of modern science and technology and through her work, attempts to make these concepts for relevant, accessible, and personal. There are strong interdisciplinary themes in Rapoport’s work. One of her largest projects entitled Objects On My Dresser shows images of twenty-nine objects from her dresser which were then paired with twenty-nine other images that were chosen based on both psychological and cultural associations drawn by Rapoport. She first evaluated the objects more objectively looking at shape, color, monetary values. The artist then became to make more emotional responses to said objects. The work also explored the ideas of metaphors and word-associations.

Aesthetically, I was very drawn to the organized feel of Sonya Rapoport’s work. In particular, Objects On My Dresser feels as if one is looking at a somewhat complex map based on hidden meanings and secret codes. However, the piece also has a somewhat more personal feel with the clumsily placed labels, and images of varying sizes. Her piece Periodic Table of the Elements again successfully fuses a more scientific, and organized idea with more personal feeling pictures and associations. Many of Rapoport’s pieces have this balanced feeling of objective and subjective which is why I feel so drawn to many of her works. The layout of these pieces feel carefully calculated and premeditated, but there is an overarching emotive feeling that helps to keep the viewer interest and connect him/her to the piece.