A Deep Dive into Low-Tech Media by FEED Sandbox Artist-in-Residence, Lisa Austin
As the invited Artist-in-Residence at FEED’s Sandbox in Spring 2026, Lisa Austin visited historic and contemporary media art on exhibition at the Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester, NY, the National Portrait Gallery in DC and NYC’s Whitney Biennial. At FEED, after tutorials by Benton Bainbridge and Brad Ford, Austin experimented with vintage equipment. During her residency, Austin completed the groundwork for three media works that will be exhibited at FEED in Fall 2026:
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RIP VOSH Multi-monitor “figurative” media piece featuring a video performance of the recently deceased DC-Baltimore area electronic musician, Dave Vosh.
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KISS ME KATE Video loops of close ups of participants repeating the title played on two "fat" Zenith monitors placed (screen to screen) on a circular, cushioned platform.
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GREEN Compact, six-monitor installation looping footage exploring a place - Erie’s West Bayfront Boulevard Park neighborhood. By adjusting the hue and saturation, GREEN will explore the variability, reality and unreality of digital color.
ABOUT AUSTIN: After moving from the DC area to Erie to teach in Edinboro’s Art Department, Lisa Austin established the CIVITAS art collaborative in 2004. Austin, a social sculptor, subsequently initiated and co-founded organizations cultivating community and addressing urban design issues including adaptive reuse, economic development, education and transit. These groups include: All Aboard Erie, Connect Urban Erie, Innovation Erie Product Design Competition & Design Lab, Made in Erie Marketplace, Preservation Erie and SculptureX. Over the past 20 years, Austin has co-organized hundreds of events including guest speakers, workshops and protests. She has served on the city’s Zoning Hearing Board and the county’s Planning Commission. Three dozen of Austin’s Considering the City essays have been published in the ErieReader and Erie Times-News. Austin and CIVITAS were key forces behind two local political campaigns, the filing of three federal lawsuits challenging car-centric demolition and construction as well as Michael Kimmelman’s front front-page New York Timesstory about the McBride Viaduct.
