Gretchen is an artist, researcher, and educator who lives and works in Nebraska. She
works primarily primarily with light-based sculpture, creative code, and education research.
She received her PhD in Innovative Learning Technologies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL) in 2024, with a focus on teaching creative coding to artists. She also received her MFA in Sculpture and Emerging Media from UNL.
She is currently a visiting professor at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Art, where she teaches, designs curriculum, and researches creative coding.
Contact:
g retchenk athleenl arsen@g mail.com
She received her PhD in Innovative Learning Technologies at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln (UNL) in 2024, with a focus on teaching creative coding to artists. She also received her MFA in Sculpture and Emerging Media from UNL.
She is currently a visiting professor at the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Art, where she teaches, designs curriculum, and researches creative coding.
Contact:
g retchenk athleenl arsen@g mail.com
Artist Statement
“In my creative practice I climb down the ladder, put the glass slipper on my own foot, and build the ball myself. What I mean is, instead of waiting for the prince and his kingdom to come, I have learned to pursue my own dreams.
I use LEDs, microcontrollers, lamp parts, code, wood, acrylic, and other materials to create light-based sculptures for domestic and public spaces. I am concerned with transforming spaces through the objects I dream and build, and with building objects that are themselves transformable. In my work I explore how light and the form it emanates from interact— how the two create form and how the form is in relationship with the environment.
My creative practice is intimately interwoven with the technologies I work with, some of which have their own dark history. I use code and electronics to illuminate new possibilities for technology and for myself.”