Claudia Ximena Valdés López

AKA: CXVL
formerly: CLAUDIA X. VALDES

...the world can change for the better, if you have the courage to keep trying, even when it makes you vulnerable. Important changes only happen if you are willing to risk something.

~Wendy R. Sherman, Former United States Deputy Secretary of State

PROFESSIONAL BIO

CXVL (born Santiago, Chile) is the artist formerly known as "Claudia X. Valdes".

CXVL is a maverick polymath who excels across divergent disciplines/fields of expertise. Most known for her artwork as a conceptually motivated visual/video artist and as a university academic in emerging media (art-sci-tech), she has also held roles as an institutional leader, a DEI policy maker, a philosophical-theoretical scholar, and a court mediator. Far outside of those boxes, once upon a time CXVL also wore the hats of an equity stock-trader, portfolio analyst, web designer, a semi-professional dancer, and a musician. In sum, CXVL is agile and undaunted. Intellectually restless, she continuously scans for challenge-opportunities in herself and in the world.

Within her creative oeuvre, major strategies have been to posit art as a means to catalyze and frame social spaces for meaningful discourse...to evoke reflection upon the ethics of human decision-making/actions and the impact of this on individual and collective life.

CXVL has exhibited internationally, across four continents, including at the ICA, London; MCA, Chicago; WRO Center for Media Art, Poland; Armory Center for the Arts, CA; Mills College Art Museum, CA; UCR/California Museum of Photography; Centro Multimedia/Centro National de las Artes, Mexico; Werkstätten und Kulturhaus, Austria; National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Russia; San Jose ICA, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; Charles B. Wang Center, SUNY Stony Brook; Exit Art, NY; Bauhaus-Universität, Germany; San Francisco Art Institute/Walter McBean Gallery; Instituto Chileno Norteamericano, Chile; SITE Santa Fe, NM; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art/College of Art + Design, Washington DC.

As a former academic, CXVL developed and taught digital media art courses at UC Berkeley, the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) at the University of Washington, at UC Santa Cruz, the University of New Mexico, and at Mills College and Stanford University as a Visiting Artist. At the University of New Mexico (UNM) (2006-2018), she served as tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Art leading the advanced curricula in emerging technologies for EAT (Experimental Art + Technology), produced internationally-awarded students, and initiated and founded the Textile-Technology Lab. Between 2019-2020, she served as 'Expert in the Field' on MFA thesis committees.

As a former university administrator, she led as the Associate Director of the interdisciplinary ARTS Lab (the Art, Research, Technology, and Science Laboratory) and as the Associate Director of the College of Fine Arts' ATC (Art Technology Center). While founding Chair of the College of Fine Arts diversity committee, she initiated and led policy for diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) systems change within the College + University levels (PI of coauthored DEI white paper), and served on university President + Provost committees and Task Forces. Her legacy with this particular effort is the complete restructuring of the university to establish DEI dean-level leadership positions in each UNM school/college.

Bolstering her research and change-making leadership, CXVL holds formal training and certificates in both Basic Mediation and Family Mediation. She supported peaceable conflict resolution within two New Mexico court systems as a volunteer English and Spanish-translating mediator.

PAST COLLABORATORS

WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS

PHILLIP THURTLE

CHRISTOPHER DOLDER

CATALOG OF WORKS, not a resume, not the things I've done. for that, read the bio.

One To The Power Of Infinity, 2025 - ongoing
350+ Fine Art Prints
www.1tothepowerofinfinity.com

POLANKSI ENDORSERs ™, 2024 - present
Anti-Rape app:
www.polanskiendorsers.com
Campaign:
youtube / bluesky

REMAKING PHOTOGRAPHY, 2024 - present
Cultural intervention thought experiments
AI research: photography / video / text
instagram

A Man Walks Towards, 2024
7 minutes 23 seconds
Claudia X. Valdes, video
William Fowler Collins, music

Hallucinating Loss, 2022
Album artwork for Hallucinating Loss (William Fowler Collins)
WESTERN NOIR

Beautiful Illusions, 2020
Suite of 18 photographs
Archival Carbon Pigment Ink
each 15" x 18.75"
(works destroyed 2025)

Cane Lugubre, Memorans Illum Finem, 2019
1 minute 56 seconds (loop) Sound Art
Claudia X. Valdes, concept, mixing and vocals
William Fowler Collins, recording

for Heidegger, 2019
Platinum, Palladium, Gold photograph
One of a kind, edition of 5
each 6″ x 7.7″

Field Music, 2018
Album Artwork for Field Music (William Fowler Collins)
SIGE Records

ARCHIVE, VOLUME 1, 2017
Expanded Photo Book
Suite of 16 Archival Pigment Prints
Dimensions Variable 11" x 14" - 11" x 29"

Judgment, 2016
Photo Installation
Archival Pigment Print on Japanese Kozo Paper
92'' x 92''

Under Stars And Smoke, 2016
Album Artwork for Under Stars And Smoke (William Fowler Collins + James Jackson Toth)
Blackest Rainbow Records LP and Digital

For the Future, With Love, 2015
Double-sided Flag
3' x 5'

Mesa Ritual, 2014
Album Artwork for Mesa Ritual (aka: William Fowler Collins + Raven Chacon) SIGE Records
LP cover photograph
Cassette Tape cover photograph
Cassette Tape Insert, photograph
Ranked #1 in Village Voice: The Best Noise Music in 2014: The Year’s Top 36 Noise Cuts

Chiron (Echo), 2014
Series of 15 photographs
Archival Pigment Prints on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 3
additional images produced in Platinum, Palladium, Gold
dimensions variable

DIALOGO, 2014
6 minutes 8 seconds
Immersive Fulldome Video
Claudia X. Valdes, video
William Fowler Collins, music

Everything Matters, 2014
Digital Prints on Metallic Paper
5.5” x 8”

Tapeta Lucida, 2012
Vocals for Tenebroso LP (William Fowler Collins) track "Tapeta Lucida"

The Sixth Magnitude, 2011-12
10 minutes 3-channel immersive audio-video installation
Claudia X. Valdes, video
William Fowler Collins, music

Jornada del Muerto, 2009
40 minute performance, in 4 parts
Live video performance, Claudia X. Valdes
Live experimental guitarist, William Fowler Collins

REVELATION 2213, 2009
www. revelation2213.com
Interactive Networked Installation
Computer, external hard drive, LCD monitor, video camera, foot pedal, custom software

Minutes to Midnight, 2008
10 min 26 sec (silent) Super 8 transferred to Digital Video
Installation: dimensions variable

Trinity Site Series, 2007-08
Series of 10 C-prints
Dimensions vary: 18" x 13.5" through 48" x 64"
Included in the 2009 book w/associated conference: conference: Human Futures: Art in the Age of Uncertainty book: @amazon

From Spiderman to Alba: Transgenics in a Post-Nuclear World, 2007
New Media Scholarship
co-authored with Phillip Thurtle
Explores post-1945 bio-mutants, in science fiction and comic superheros, as conceptual precursors to contemporary bio-art practices. The full paper is archived by CIANT, and can be read HERE.

ALPHA.OMEGA, 2007
Duratrans on Lightbox
26" x 40”
(works destroyed 2025)

White City of the Future, 2006
9 min 30 sec
Digital Video Installation: dimensions variable

TRINITY TEST SITE, NM, 2006-2008
Survival performances
Fear and flight performances
Performance of responses for nuclear survival at the Trinity Test Site on White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

His Memory, Like the World’s, Was Getting Spotty, 2006
Dyptich of C-Prints
each 24" x 30”

TESTS, 2006
Suite of 12 images
Watercolor and guache on paper
11" x 16" each

#261, 2005
9 minutes Digital Video Installation

BLASTS ( #1, #2, #3), 2005
Suite of 3 images
Watercolor and guache on paper
11" x 14”

Biofeedback and the Arts: Listening as Experimental Practice, 2005
New Media Scholarship
co-authored with Phillip Thurtle
Explores experiments with biofeedback in the arts in order to more fully understand the aesthetic and affective domains of consciousness. Archived on the Media Art Histories site, and can be read HERE.

192:291, 2002/2009
5 minutes Digital Video Installation

11th Hour Archive, 2002 - ongoing
Collected Public Narratives

In the Dream of the Planet, 2002
7 min 40 sec Digital Video Installation
Included in the 2016 book: ART IN THE MAKING: Artists and their Materials from the Studio to Crowdsourcing

Recurring Dream, Nine, 2002
Digital print on board, video monitor, and 10 min digital video on DVD
48" x 60"

Sites of Trauma, 2002
Suite of 6 Oil on wood
3.5" x 45” overall
3.5" x 5" each panel

Suppressing the Dream, 2001
4 min 49 sec Digital Video

Sacrament, Conversion, etc., 2001
2-channel Installation
Watercolor on wall with video projection

Fractal, 2001
3 channel video installation
created for University of California, Berkeley Dance Theater
Claudia X. Valdes, artist
Christopher Dolder, choreographer
Edwin Duggar, composer

Untitled (Once), 2000
oil on 5' x 6' canvas
with 13min video projection in loop

Interlude, 2000
Two 20"x16" canvases
Oil painting, photograph, and 9 minute video projection in loop

Bardos, 2000
4 minutes Digital Video

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