Channel TWo (CH2)

Channel TWo (CH2) is a new media art and design studio. CH2 is loosely aligned with the concept of over-identification, Slavoj ?i?ek's description of a tactic intended to reveal the hidden nature of dominant ideologies -- not by pointing to them but by becoming extreme forms of them. CH2 is named for the idea of "transmission" (Channel) and for the acronym of the people involved (TWo): Adam Trowbridge, Jessica Westbrook, and Oskar Westbridge. CH2 is focused on mixed up reality, media production, design, development, and distribution? authorized formats + unauthorized ideas, systems of control + radical togetherness. CH2's practice involves all aspects of research and production including conceptual development, coding, aesthetics, visual/sound/media design, networking/configurations, and technology development. CH2 productions generally intersect play-oriented interface with critical undercurrents. CH2 is interested in luck, levels, and trespassing through the contexts of landscape (in every sense of the term), interactivity, and augmented reality. The motivations underlying CH2 research/practice are aesthetic, social and political. CH2 uses media, game platforms, communication design ephemera, and mobile apps to reveal paradigms, complexity, contradictions, and cognitive dissonance.

CH2 has received a number of new media awards including a Rhizome Commission (2012), a Turbulence Commission (2011), and a Terminal Net Art Commission (2009). Recent CH2 projects include a multi-level playable virtual landscape installation with an accompanying scratch-off lotto card system at SPACES (Cleveland, OH); an infected 6-channel video, rss feed, and alternate reality game at Digital Arts Entertainment Lab, (Atlanta, GA); an AR intervention of database error induced ""home invasions"" through "Cyber In Securities" (Washington, DC); a networked game installation called ""Find Each Other.Begin there"" for "Born Digital" at the Contemporary Art Museum (Raleigh, NC); and a downloadable collection of computer viruses, inspired by a love story, at the Block Museum of Art (Evanston, IL).

Both Adam Trowbridge and Jessica Westbrook grew up in suburban Orlando, FL. They have been working together since meeting in high school in 1990. Oskar Westbridge, a dotcom inspired baby, joined the scene in Y2K. Channel TWo (CH2) was launched in 2010 as a means to de-compartmentalize everyday life and channel their shared interests and activities in new media practices. Adam Trowbridge (born 1972, San Diego, CA) is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He received an MFA in Electronic Visualization from the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (2008). Jessica Westbrook (born 1974, Pittsburgh, PA) is an Assistant Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She received an MFA in Photography from Temple University, Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA (1998).