Josh Short is an interdisciplinary artist that uses sound, installation, and broadcasting to create immersive experiences that frame contemporary American mythologies and rituals. In this altered space the viewer is more free to explore their inner desires, breaking the internal dialog we care with us in everyday life. After graduating with an MFA from UC Davis in 2009 his practice utilizes machines, pirate radio, and cultural detritus to create interactive environments. Notably his most recent project, The Speed Trials Arcade, merges remote controlled vehicles, exercise equipment, and radio to create analog driving simulators that explore the uniquely American relationship to automobiles, and the supply chain. Short is also the founder of the Cardboard Institute of Technology, a collaborative group that creates immersive installations completely out of cardboard. Josh is also the founder of Bomb Shelter Radio, an ongoing Radio project that creates temporary low powered FM radio encounters all over the country. Often these projects take the form of site specific installations that utilize materials gathered from the local environment. In 2019 Josh started www.BombShelterRadio.live a 24 hour online element of his radio practice. He performs weekly broadcasts.
He was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, and a graduate fellowship at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2010. Joshua has had several solo exhibits at venues including the Bedford Gallery, Johansson Projects, The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and the Exploratorium. Josh has been an resident artist at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Yaddo, Joan Mitchell Center, and Crosstown Arts. He regularly tours the country operating his mobile radio station “the Lucille Valentine” and as of 2024 he is building a new FM radio broadcasting station out of a 1968 Cadillac Coupe Deville named Doris.
NEWS
6/6/2024
Did an Artist Talk at Sierra College in Nevada City. I covered some topics including cardboard sculpture, travel, radio, getting art into the world, art as a lifestyle, and adulting.
4/20/2024
Cadillac Coupe DeVille update, Interior is done. New wheels are in the mail. We’ll get those on over the next couple of weeks.
4/6/2024
It’s my one year aniversery at my Job here at CSU Cal Maritime, so far so good, I really dig running a Makerspace, I get to make stuff all day long in the shop and I don’t have to give grades.
EXHIBITIONS
This body of work centered around themes of survival, garbage, consumer products, the culture of waste, and the American spirit of invention.
