Marc Lafia is an artist, filmmaker and information designer. Over the years Lafia has made various experimental films and conceptual art pieces exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. His early films (Auto-re-tour, Fini-la-guerre) explore the tensions between narrative and the pure surface of film. Lafia has taken his film interest into the space of new media and his most recent work, The Vanndemar Meme-x or Lara Croft Stripped Bare by her Assassins, Even has been exhibited in the Walker Art Center1s Artist Entertainment Network (2000) show and Germany1s ZKM Net_Condition (1999) exhibition curated by Peter Weibel. In these and two other new media works – the World Picture Clock and Hyper Hyper –, Lafia looks to create open works allowing the viewer, or user-participant, to author and read against and within an archive both personal and collective. Marc Lafia is also Founder, Information Architect and Editorial-Creative Director of ArtandCulture.com, a new website which allows for the experiential, contextual and associative exploration of the arts. Launched in December 1999, the site has been recognized with numerous international awards and distinctions including the Silver Medal from ID magazine, the Communication Arts Award for Interactive Design, and two Art Director1s Club Awards, 77th and 79th. Lafia has been published in various journals and online publications including Art Forum, and speaks regularly at international art and media conferences. He was recently selected as a finalist for the SFMOMA Webby Prize for Excellence in Online Art. Since receiving an MFA in film theory and production from UCLA in 1989, he has carried on an art, design and film practice ranging from conceptualizing music videos for Madonna, to developing video games, adapting comic books, teaching at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, and directing short films and his recent first feature, Suitcase.
