Erik Hoff Zepka (erik rzepka, ek rzepka, xoxoxcom, xoxox, Xenia Common) is a conceptual media artist, curator, poet, scientist, educator and theorist who critically explores the practice and consequences of science and technology. His art engages with the cultural products of technoscience and rethinks them in terms of exhibition and display. The work has been showcased at HUMlab, ISEA (Scotland and Canada), Nabi Museum, The Tate Modern, Coaxial Arts (LA), Bronx ArtSpace, The Western Front, Pikselfest, SPAMM Cupcake (Paris/New York), The Whitney Museum, Videographe, and Interactive Futures. He’s collaborated with groups including The Avatar Orchestra Metaverse, R3//1X//0RX in addition to artists such as Pauline Oliveiros and Stelarc.
His theory, teaching and curating focus on a creative and critical approach to cultural spaces that provide insight into the fragmenting and alienating quality of new media environments. It appears in Furtherfield, VIVO Press, Transfer Gallery, Publication Studio and Gallery Online with curatorial projects for Unit/Pitt Gallery, COINfest, Quinary Arts, The WRONG Biennale and VIVO Media Arts Centre. He has designed and delivered courses for Underacademy College and the University of British Columbia.
His more creative writing furthers the deconstructed quality of a post-technological semantics and can be seen in presses including GAMMM, Dusie Press, Nauseated Drive and journals such as Otoliths, W, blazevox, i-outlaw, Critiphoria, Nuls, Venereal Kittens, Crashtext (France), Big Bridge, Front Magazine, Word for Word, Zinhar (Turkey), the Nordic Poetry Centre and Unlikely Stories.
As a scientist he engaged in years of interdisciplinary laboratory Graduate work, working in labs from Immunology to Pathology to Environmental Health and Chemistry, in order to gain both hands on and contextual knowledge of institutional science practice. He conceived and co-founded the Open Science Network, a Vancouver-based laboratory dedicated to democratizing and rethinking scientific communication and engagement. He has given talks and workshops on Open Science at Vancouver Hackspace, the Mini Maker Faire, the BIL Conference, Innovation Labs and Curiosity Collider.
His overall project ties all these strands together into an interdisciplinary research project that comes together at the conceptual hub, x-o-x-o-x.com and is further documented at erikzepka.com. It has been presented at the SFU Institute for the Humanities, the Group of X, Neutral Ground, the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, and the Modern Language Association Conference. Interdisciplinarity meets concept where the fallout of technoscientific advancement is explored in relation to biological and cultural alterity (intersectionality, disability, otherness). A capitaloscene research program given to explore the embodied ramifications of progress, tied closely in practice to process and performance.