Pedro
Ortuño Mengual

Professor (Catedrático) specialized in Media Art, Audio-visual and Sculpture Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Murcia. He has been Director of the Department of Fine Arts (2010-2014), Vice Dean of Research (2014- 2016) and Director of the Art and Identity Policies Research Group (2008-2019). He has been Principal Investigator of four R + D + I Projects. It currently has 3 period Reserch Sexenios and 1 Tranfer-Sexenio recognizer. His recent research deals with issues of memory, gender, industrial archaeology, historiography of video art and experimental transmedia art, among other topics. Some milestones are: New (EGO) Cuerpos Conectados en ETOPIA Centro de Arte, Ciencia y Tecnología de Zaragoza (2021); the exhibition on Art, Science and Ecology: Reset Mar Menor: laboratorio de imaginarios para un paisaje en crisis (2020) [Reset Mar Menor: Laboratory of Imaginaries for a Landscape in Crisis], at the Center of Carmen for Contemporary Culture in Valencia. The project brings together artists, scientists and citizen platforms with the purpose of collaboratively rethinking this territory; Arqueologia do presente: lanificios (2013) [Archaeology of the Present: Lanificios], an exhibition project that offers a contrastive study of the new Portuguese cinema in relation to decline of the wool textile industry; and the film and research project The Other Side of Bollywood (2007), which addresses censorship, gender discrimination, and globalization in the recent cinema of India. Since 1990, he has exhibited his installations and videos internationally in art centers such as: ETOPIA Center Art and Tecnologie of Zaragoza (2021); the Museum of Lanificios (Covilha, Portugal), Center for Art and Media ZKM (Karlsruhe, Germany, 2009); Gasworks (London 2008); Reina Sofía National Museum (Madrid 2006-2008); Veronicas Hall (Murcia, 2007); Medialab - PhotoEspaña (Madrid, 2004); Metrònom Foundation (Barcelona, 2002). He has also curated audiovisual exhibitions, such as the experimental film series OFF-BOLLYWOOD (Audiovisual Dep., Reina Sofía National Museum, 2009). http://pedro-ortuno.com/ He is the editor of the book LA IMAGEN PENSATIVA; ENSAYO VISUAL Y PRÁCTICAS CONTEMPORÁNEAS EN EL ESTADO ESPAÑOL, 16 MIRADAS AL VIDEOARTE (Brumaria 2018), on the practice and dissemination of new trends in video art and New Media in Spain. The book is a compendium of the activities generated around the series of screenings and workshops entitled "Looks at video art", conceived and coordinated for the Puertas de Castilla Cultural Center (Murcia, 2007-2016). The series culminated in the Symposium "The pensive image, 15 looks at video art" (2011). The interventions at the symposium are the origin of many of the book’s chapters. The book explores recent trends in Spanish video art that not been systematically studied, many of which are explored for the first time in this volume. The authorsare essential critics and creators of the contemporary scene, such as Josu Rekalde, Eugeni Bonet, Daniel G. Andújar, Toni Serra, Clara Boj / Diego Díaz, Cabello/Carceller, Marina Nuñez, Juan Crego among others. The book has been reviewed very positively in indexed magazines such as Arte y Sociedad, BRAC Barcelona Art Research. Brumaria is ranked 13th in the Scholarly Publishers Indicators Fine Arts section. In 2021 he was co-editor with Laura Baigorri of the book CUERPOS CONECTADOS.Art, identity and self-representation in the transmedia society edited by Dykinson. The book is the result of an R + D + i research project with the same name, from the Ministry of Industry and Competitiveness (2018-2021) where different approaches carried out by the project researchers regarding the body and identity in art mediated by technology. It also includes the works presented in the NEW (EGO) exhibition at the ETOPIA Art Center in Zaragoza