JOERILEY.WORK




joriley@ucsd.edu
@pleasedontfront
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Photo: Natalie Conn

  Joe Riley is an artist, historian, and Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego Visual Arts in a joint environmental research program with Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation. 

  Joe’s research has recently been supported by the Getty Scholars Program, a UCSD Rita L. Atkinson Fellowship, and the UC Humanities Research Institute. His dissertation, Fixing the Sea: Case Studies Toward A Critical Environmental History of Ocean Art and Science since 1970, foregrounds and critically examines histories and practices of interaction between artists, oceanographers, and marine life situated within California’s university-military-research complex.

  From 2020–2025 Joe has been a participating artist and co-curator for the Pacific Standard Time exhibition Embodied Pacific, featuring projects by thirty artists working with researchers in laboratories, field sites, and archives in Southern California and the Pacific Islands. 

  Previously, he was an Ocean Fellow with TBA21-Academy and participated in the Whitney Independent Study Program. Joe holds a BFA from The Cooper Union School of Art and has taught at UC San Diego, Cal State San Marcos, Stevens Institute of Technology, and The Cooper Union.
TEACHING






VIS 101A: Art, Design, & Urban Ecology: The Wildland-Urban InterfaceWinter 2025
UC San Diego

In this upper-division studio course, we explore the theory and methods of an “ecology of practices” across physical design and sculptural strategies in the “Wildland Urban Interface” (WUI), an area or zone where built structures and human development intermingle with landscapes regarded as ‘natural’ (forests, grasslands, the deep ocean). The ecological landscapes and infrastructures we will work with include urban and suburban environments as well as wild, natural, and protected lands. Specifically, through hands-on research and creative projects, we gather around the WUI threshold zone and engage with its social and ecological systems, understanding them as sources of materials available for artistic intervention and design of structures spanning art and design. 

Our approach will emphasize historical, critical, and speculative thinking and study as they inform and are enacted through technical and practical making and doing. We will consider the making of sculpture, research tools, and built environments in the context of mutually supportive and reciprocity-driven relations. We will begin the quarter with brief introductions to the conceptual boundaries of the WUI. Through a series of seminars, guest lectures, and field site visits, we will explore some of the shifting and slippery meanings of the “urban,” the “wild,” and “ecology.” We will incorporate different artistic methods and approaches that have been used to construct urban-ecological interventions and platforms, and consider how we might approach this interface differently, informed by these precedents. Our exploration will be anchored in methods of doing “fieldwork” and “lab work” as artists and designers. Utilizing community-based participatory research methods, prototyping techniques honed during skill-building workshops, and group-oriented assignments, we will tackle critical challenges and contradictions associated with WUI. 





Collaboration and community are central to this class. We will build collaborative relationships with each other and with external course partners, such as UCSD’s Cleland Lab, the EarthLab Community Station, and Condor Media. Through individual and group work in our course “co-laboratories,” we will use critical fabulation with hands-on prototyping and fabrication to experiment with the urban and ecological as conceptual art and design frameworks. The main task for the quarter will be to plan and build a “field station,” or a platform/toolset for study, data-gathering, teaching, dreaming, and staging artistic intervention(s) at a local site. Toward this goal, our class will divide into 3-4 interrelated “co-laboratory” working groups, each dedicated to a specific topic/intervention. Project plan options and primary partners/sites for each co-laboratory include:

Water + Soil (Co-laboratory 1)

Primary partner/site: EarthLab Community Station

Wildfire Recovery + Resilience (Co-laboratory 2 + 3)

Partners/sites:  Cleland Lab (Karagan Smith and Alexander Gillert), Condor Media (Andrew Pittman)

Wildflowers + Wildlife (Co-laboratory 4)

Partners/sites: Cleland Lab (Julia Bebout), UCSD Urban Forestry (Chris Johnson)



Studio and site visits:


Student work samples:

Liana Kitchel, Caleb Holmes, Anna Norris
Sarah Chung, Sydney Nunnemaker, Jiaxin Tao
Susana Lazaro Hernandez, Alan Gonzalez, Aditya Venkatesh 
Gurleen Kurr, Jacie Littell, Dayton Garrett
Erin Kee, David Ledesma, William Ung
Ajjon Zimmerman, Juliana Amaya, Christine Bui



  




AMD 316: Intro to Art, Science, & TechnologySpring 2023 - Spring 2024
Cal State San Marcos

“Intro to Art, Science, & Technology” is an interdisciplinary studio and lecture-based course centered on the juncture of science, visual technologies, and contemporary art practice. We explore key issues and histories of visual representation that put pressure on the disciplinary divisions of art and science while engaging with critical discussions about the power of images, creative interventions, and critical and interdisciplinary practices in context. To do so, we will investigate different approaches, materials, and technologies used by artists today, focusing especially on research trajectories in contemporary art and design that interact with histories and visual tools of science, such as specimen collections, printmaking, photography, and data visualization. 

The course is organized in three overlapping sequences/objects of study around which art, science, and technology tend to collide: collections, images, and communication. In the first sequence, we explore practices and fraught histories of scientific collecting and claims to objectivity/subjectivity as they face onto critical sites of interdisciplinary art practice. In the second, we engage with optical technologies and consider the use of photography in science and art, as well as the science and technology of printing (relief and silkscreen), image (re)production, preservation, and systems of classification. We conclude the term by working through the interrelated promises and challenges of scientific and artistic visual communication, looking at how communicative strategies (such as flow charts, idea maps, graphics, and performances) can convey complex ideas and reach beyond subject-specific information. 

Coursework consists of three sequence-specific assignments with both visual/material and written elements. Students are also expected to keep a dedicated “field notes” journal throughout the semester, to be periodically evaluated as a portion of their participation grade. In addition to preparing students for advanced courses in printmaking, photography, time-based media, and interdisciplinary art practices, this course also supports learning in knowledge areas like anthropology, philosophy, design, and the history of science and technology

This course includes lectures, demonstrations, hands on experimentation, field trips, site visits, and dialogues with practicing artists. Generally, we will begin each class with a lecture on the day’s topics and/or hold class discussion and critiques. The second half of the class will be hands on studio time where students will engage in projects designed around the course material. There will be field trips that will require us to meet off campus on occasion. Students will be informed when they are required to meet off campus.



Learning objectives and outcomes:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of the historical intersections, divergences, and exchanges of art, science, and print/photographic technologies.
  • Evaluate and utilize practices/methods of collaboration between artists and scientists through multimodal projects (group and individual)
  • Gain ability to present and critique interdisciplinary artwork and processes, and interact with others’ work through critical dialogue.
  • Acquire familiarity with, and practical knowledge of, a range of technologies, media, and materials germane to both visual communication in the sciences and artistic practice



Student work samples:

Lauren Vega
Anitza Juarez Reyonoso
Alan Lopez 
Crystal Rivera Camarillo
Jordan Lanter
Peter Whitley
Megan Honeck
Tyler Cook
Peter Whitley
Jack McCabe
Peter Whitley
Jacob Wilhelm
Crystal Rivera Camarillo
Reggy Ishaq
Carlos Esquivel
Cia Soto
Peter Whitley
Edson Arcos



  




VIS 133A Studio Topics in Speculative Design: Oceanic Futures Spring 2023
UC San Diego

The field of speculative design emphasizes critical practices and interventions that are based on fabulation and exploration of alternative futures and realities. In this course, we will follow this trajectory into the sea, where “the field” and its associated methods are unmoored from terrestrial realities and challenged by liquid phenomena. Students in the course will engage with the ongoing turn of contemporary art and design toward the ocean, and question how these trends relate to the spectre of anthropogenic climate change. Against a backdrop of rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps, loss of marine biodiversity, ocean acidification, etc., what insights and impacts can speculative design offer in (re)imagining the perils and promises of oceanic futures? 

"Topic" comes from the Greek topos, meaning place. We tend to think of "place" as a fixed location, typically on land. This speculative design "special topics" course focuses on design relating to a "place" that is unfixed and fluid: the Earth's ocean. We will consider the ocean and other fluid environmental systems in ways that complicate the association of place with land, property, and fixed locations. We will explore the place(s) of critical and speculative design in fluid environments, focusing specifically on ocean systems and maritime social practices. The course will move away from traditional boundaries of studio and classroom and into regional watersheds, coastal ecosystems, deep sea environments, labs where marine life is scrutinized, studied, and even designed, oceanographic archives, and centers and edges of traditional and Indigenous maritime craft.

Participation in this course will involve numerous site visits and field trips, both on and off campus. The instructor anticipates that a significant number of weekly meetings will take place away from the assigned classroom space. In addition to completing weekly readings and a midterm project development presentation, students will create an original ocean design/visual arts research project, consisting of both written and visual elements. This course has prerequisites; however, exceptions may be made for students who wish to enroll and are already engaged in environmental science majors, environmental humanities, marine engineering, archaeology, anthropology, and related fields. 



Learning objectives and outcomes:

  • Conduct visual arts-based research and critical fabulation in the context of marine scientific laboratories, archives, and non-terrestrial and fluid environments.
  • Identify and evaluate connections between ocean environmental phenomena and key methods and concerns of speculative design as a field, including, but not limited to, digital technology and memory, geopolitics/geopoetics, climate futures, and community-based practice.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of, and a critical perspective on, an ongoing “oceanic turn” in the fields of visual art and design 
  • Prototype and iterate artworks and design objects that embody complex systems and material realities, such as those intrinsic to marine life, maritime technologies, and oceanic phenomena


Student work samples:

He Xuanru, Catherine Tang
Yuto Ayabe
He Xuanru, Catherine Tang
Evelyn Chen
Stephen De La Pena 



  




HAR 111 Foundation of 3D: Form and Space
Fall 2018 - Spring 2019
Stevens Insitute of Technology

 How does an idea take shape as an object, a structure, or a sculpture? What can the making of meaning through three-dimensional forms teach us about the physical and spatial world? In this hands-on, techniques-driven studio course, we will pursue answers to these kinds of questions and creative development using traditional and non-traditional sculptural materials, methods, and tools. Our collective goal is to develop our capacities to see, interpret, and create interesting work out of the technical processes and magical possibilities intrinsic to sculptural methods of negotiating physical/material form and space. 

As a participant in this class, you are asked to look closely and think openly about the fundamentals of form and space, and to work on projects that explore the basic properties of sculptural materials and three-dimensional structures. Throughout the term, we will use a range of materials and methods to study and build new relationships with spatial and physical phenomena such as shape, balance, joint, scale, body, light, and motion. In addition to making use of everyday, accessible materials like cardboard, molding clay, papier-mâché, and fabric, we will also focus on basic woodworking, metalworking, and casting techniques. 

The skills we explore in this course are relevant not only to artistic practice and intellectual life, but also to day-to-day practical experiences. For example: knowing how to safely cut and join pieces of wood and/or steel, effectively using adhesives and fasteners, creating durable and structurally sound sculptures, accurately reproducing physical objects, tying knots, and more. After laying a foundation of experience in physical modeling, use of analog tools, and “drawing in space,” with planar and linear materials, we will touch on digital fabrication processes and 3D modelling. In addition to furnishing experience in three-dimensional design problem-solving and spatial practice, this course will prepare students to enroll in advanced sequences in sculpture, fabrication, design, architecture, socially/environmentally engaged art, and more. 

Course objectives and learning outcomes: 

  • Gain foundational experience and understanding of the safe and effective use of the tools, techniques, and materials in sculpture and three-dimensional design.
  • Articulate and analyze the basic visual elements and principles of three-dimensional design present in sculptural artworks.
  • Demonstrate the ability to use the visual elements, principles, and fundamental techniques of sculptural practice to create three-dimensional compositions and designs.
  • Create original works of sculpture that explore a variety of formal and conceptual problems, demonstrate a visual vocabulary, and make effective use of constraints of the physical world and materials
  • Explain and evaluate personal artwork and the work of others through critique



Student work samples:




  




FA100 Introduction to Techniques
Fall 2014 - Spring 2019
Cooper Union  At Cooper Union I taught Introduction to Techniques, a hands-on course for students of art and architecture to learn metalworking, woodworking, casting, and digital design tools and fabrication methods. 


  




They Can’t Kill Us All
(co-taught with Victoria Sobel & Casey Gollan)
Fall 2013
Bruce High Quality Foundation University
This isn't so much your garden-variety, free, experimental, continuing-ed, art class as it is a weed-patch in a vacant lot. Before us, we have this tangled, suffocating mess that is higher education today.  We'd like to begin clearing it out, burning it down, or whatever else works. They Can't Kill Us All is an effort to do just that. We'd like to take out little patch of weeds that has somehow managed to avoid the lethal blight, of tuition, student debt, standardized testing and indoor rock-climbing walls, and we'd like to cultivate something that's both free and nourishing — in an educational sense.  Food for thought, and thoughts for regurgitating up on anyone, or anything, that tries to kill free education.



Each Wednesday evening for the fall semester at BHQFU, we'll hold an open meeting and a roundtable discussion on free education, to be followed by whatever, or wherever, that may lead us. We'll have guest speakers, partners in crime, and all manner of the educationally-minded join us for these sessions. These meetings will be both a call to action and a space to produce knowledge (not legumes) for the advancement of the struggle for free education. The results could be anything and everything, including, but not limited to: forging educational credentials; researching and writing a free education wiki; working in public; modeling a radically transparent organization; connecting different groups; mapping resources; and organizing lectures, workshops, trainings, and skillshares. 

Meanwhile, you can check out the Meeting Notes document and for more date-based planning as well as a mapping of people we'd like to work with check out the Lecture Series document. This Hackpad site (specifically this page and the BHQFU collection) will serve as an evolving outline. Having come up with a bunch of ideas, we decided to intentionally leave the structure open but punctuated by regular meetings. Things could either get more or less organized throughout the semester. Either way, we hope it does. 









  


GRADUATE TEACHING & RESEARCH ASSISTANT RECORD


2024Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 20, Introduction to Art in Europe & America, Fall Quarter
2022Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 30 Introduction to Speculative Design, UCSD Visual Arts, Fall Quarter

Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Elizabeth DeLoughrey, UCLA English, Winter Quarter 
2021Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Lisa Cartwright, Graphic Ocean: Navigating Pacific Science and Design, Spring Quarter

Graduate Student Researcher for Dr. Lisa Cartwright, Graphic Ocean: Navigating Pacific Science and Design, Winter Quarter

Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 20, Introduction to Art in Europe & America, Fall Quarter 
2020Graduate Student Researcher, Dr. Jeff Bowman Lab, Scripps Institution of Oceanography 

Graduate Teaching Assistant, VIS 102, Democratizing the City, Spring Quarter

2019Graduate Teaching Assitant, Muir College Writing Program, Fall Quarter