I'm Nina Wexelblatt. I'm an art historian, curator, and art writer. My bio is here, and my CV is here. These are some of the things I've been up to lately:
"The ‘Open Empire’: Communication Satellite Fictions in Three Country Happening (1966)"
In August 2025, a peer-reviewed article I wrote about the development of the global communication satellite network -- and artists' (purported) use of the Early Bird satellite in its earliest days -- was published in the journal VIEW. The theme of the issue is Tele-Visions and Wireless Technologies.
"Remote Control: Art, Technology, and the Politics of Distance (1966-1972)"
In July 2025, I defended my doctoral dissertation in art history at MIT. It explores artists' experiments with technologies of control at a distance -- from automation systems to communication satellites to electronic sensors -- as critical interventions in dominant narratives of the U.S. American postwar imaginary.
2025 College Art Association 113th Annual Conference
In February 2025, I presented my research about media art, automation, and labor history in the 1970s at the CAA annual conference in New York City. The theme of the panel was Automation, Authorship, and Authenticity.
2024 AHRC International Conference
In September 2024, I presented my research about satellite art at the Arts and Humanities Research Council annual conference at the University of Cambridge. The theme of the conference was Constellations.
Getty Research Institute Fellowship 2023-2024
I had a residential predoctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, where the theme was Art and Technology. I was there working on my project, Telepresence: Transnational Satellite Art and the "Open Empire" from September 2023 to August 2024.
2023 Graduate Women of Excellence
I was selected as a Graduate Woman of Excellence by the MIT Office of Graduate Education. You can read the full list of awardees here.
Subject: FWD: You're On Our Radar!
I wrote an essay for artist Riley Cavanaugh's book Poems Sneaking Through a Sieve, published by Have a Nice Day Press. It's about communication and spam and surrealism. You can buy a copy from the wonderful art bookstore Printed Matter.
Thresholds 49: Supply
I coedited the 49th issue of Thresholds, the peer-reviewed journal of the MIT Department of Architecture, distributed by MIT Press. The topic is supply. You can read it as a pdf (or purchase a physical copy!) online here.
Special Shapes
I made a mix for Los Angeles-based music collective mmarz. It's music for lifting off, perhaps in a hot air balloon.
