BJ Krivanek

I generally define myself as a public design-artist, implementing commissioned public site constructions and site activations in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago and elsewhere. My partner and I develop urban communications, to infiltrate the cityscape with metaphoric forms, infrastructures and media, integrating the languages of visible urban structures and spaces with the lost languages of invisible communities. We bridge the worlds of architecture, performance, urban design, visual communication and public art, to produce coherent, meaningful public design-art programs, to enhance public experience and understanding. Our public siteworks – metaphoric structures surfaced with icons, symbols and inscriptions—are directed outward, deployed within digital and non-digital public cultural space that is characterized by multiple frameworks of inscription – publications, books, ebooks, billboards, television, computers, LCD and LED panels, signage systems, traffic signs, smartphones, products, audio soundtracks, etc. – as technology continues to deconstruct and reconstruct the historical structures of the city and of the written word. I’ve worked with decades of graduate students as a professor of visual communication at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in various design disciplines, architecture, printmedia, writing, new media and video, etc. to analyze and develop structured approaches to the configuration of their design-artworks and experiential installations within the MFA Exhibition.