she/they
Arts Division
Associate Professor
Faculty
Communications Building
125
Film and Digital Media
Anna Friz creates media art, sound art, radio and transmission art, working across platforms to present installations, broadcasts, films and performances. Her creative and scholarly works often reflect upon media ecologies, land and land use, infrastructures, time perception, radio and transmission art histories, and critical fictions. She specializes in self-reflexive radio for broadcast, installation or performance, where radio is the source, subject, and medium of the work. Currently her focus is on a series of audiovisual works under the title We Build Ruins, which expressively consider mining and industrial corridors in the high altitude desert in northern Chile; Useful Radio, a live performance and installation created with Jeff Kolar based on Rick Prelinger’s radio listening archives; Revenant, a solo radio art work evolving into a future installation in collaboration with visual artist Lara Saab; and Water Line/Estuary Almanac, a 16-month composition based on the tidal patterns of the Fraser River in Vancouver created with Absolute Value of Noise for DeutschlandFunk Kultur and ORF Kunstradio, of the German and Austrian public radio.
In the autumn of 2015 Dr. Friz joined the Film and Digital Media department at University of California Santa Cruz, where she is currently Associate Professor. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the department of Sound (2011-2013), funded by the Fonds de recherche Québec – société et culture (FRQ). She earned her Ph.D. in the Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture from York University, Tkaronto/Toronto (2011), and also holds a Masters in Media Studies from Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal (2003), and a BA in Women's Studies from University of British Columbia (1996).
Anna Friz has been affiliated with Wave Farm in Acra, New York, an artist-run transmission arts center since 2002, and is a long time contributor and collaborator with ORF Kunstradio, Vienna Austria.
Sound studies and production, radio and transmission art, media history and theory, media ecologies, media art installation and performance, environmental art, environmental humanities, research creation methodologies, feminist histories of technology, community and pirate media. Anna Friz leads the Burrow of Investigation, an art/research cluster dedicated to land- and place-based practices exploring environment as media.
Sound production, field practices (art/science noticing), experimental art and media, environment as media, sound studies, media history, media theory
Karl Sczuka Prize for radio art from SWR Germany (2024)
John S. Guggenheim Fellowship (2023)
Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship (2022)
Phonurgia Nova residency award for GRM/INA studio in Paris, France (2019-postponed until 2022)
Hellman Fellowship (2018)
2nd place, Prix Palma Ars Acoustica (2014)
Finalist for the Phonurgia Nova Sound Art Prize (2017, 2005)
Nominated for Dora Mavor Moore award (Toronto) and the Betty Mitchell award (Calgary) for excellence in composition and sound design for theatre (2011)
Dr. Friz's radio art works have been commissioned by national public radio in Canada, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Denmark, and Spain, and heard on public and independent airwaves all over the world. Peformances and exhibitions in recent years include Ars Electronica Festival (Linz, Austria), The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the New York Times Magazine, esc Median Kunst Labor (Graz, Austria), Tsonami Festival de Arte Sonoro (Valparaíso and Santiago, Chile), Heroines of Sound Festival (Berlin Germany), Soundhouse at the Barbican (London UK), Espace Multimedia Gantner (Belfort France), RE:SOUND Festival (Aalborg, Denmark), The Lab (San Francisco), Wave Farm (Upper Hudson Valley, NY), and Bienal Sur (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
We are surrounded by torta, created with Rodrigo Ríos Zunino for Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene, Anna L. Tsing, Jennifer Deger, Alder Keleman Saxena and Feifei Zhou, eds. Stanford University Press, 2020.
"Uneasy Listening: Noise as Potential," in Wolf Tones. Maximilian Goldfarb, Nancy Shaver, Sterrett Smith, eds. Chicago: Soberscove Press, 2022.
"The Ruminations and Reveries of an Icelandic Fishing Trawler," in NS-12. Konrad Korabiewski and Kristján Loðmfjörð, eds. Berlin, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2019.
"30 Radio Days and Nights," in Radio Revolten: Thirty Days of Radio Art. Knut Aufermann, Sarah Washington, and Ralf Wendt, eds. Leipzig, Germany: Spector, 2019.
"The Art of Unstable Media", in Islands of Resistance: Pirate Radio in Canada. Langlois, Andrea, Ron Sakolsky, and Marion van der Zon, eds. New Star Books, 2010. pp. 167-180.
“The Loudspeaker as Instrument: The Soundworks of Nancy Tobin”, reprinted in Design and Scenography (Critical Perspectives on Canadian Theatre in English, Volume 15). Rewa, Natalie, ed. Toronto, Ontario: Playwrights Canada Press, 2009. pp. 81-90.
"You are far from us", in Acoustic Space 7: Illuminating Investigations in the Electromagnetic Spectrum. Silina, Daina et al, eds. Riga and Liepaja, Latvia: MPLab and RIXC, 2008. pp. 135-141.
"Becoming Radio", in Re-inventing Radio: Aspects of Radio as Art. Grundmann, Heidi, et al, eds. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Revolver, 2008. pp. 87-102.
"Vacant City Radio." in In the Place of Sound: Architecture|Music|Acoustics. Ripley, Colin., with M. Polo and A. Wrigglesworth, eds. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008. pp. 15-25.
"The Social Life of Radio." in Relating Radio: Communities, Aesthetics, Access. Foellmer, Golo, and Sven Thiermann, eds. Leipzig: Spector, 2006. pp. 124-131.
The Joy Channel, created with Emmanuel Madan, IO SOUND, 2018. Finalist for Phonurgia Sound Art Award.
Solar Radio/Embodied Radio Device, created with Absolute Value of Noise, 2020.
https://soundcloud.com/annafriz
