BIO

edward d bacal makes, does, and consumes things

his professional work is in communications/media, with an emphasis on digital content & design

his academic work is on 20/21st century art & visual culture

his non-professional work includes music, illustration, and making picture books for his niece

he also likes bikes, bracecephalic dogs, audiobooks, cafes, good sound, progressive ideas, travel, and more

scroll
2012 - 2018

phd at u of t's art history dept

2004

summer course in london and oxford

2018

taking up digital illustration / design

1988

delivery by dr. fredrick engle (sic) at mt. sinai hospital

2011 - 2012

ma at ucl's history of art dept

1998

exposure to new music via visiting relative

2011

dance of the demented dogs

2000

boardzone

2006-2011

ba at u of t

2004

cracked fl studio

2015-2019

conferences in europe and north america

2004

mental health

2020

front-end web development bootcamp

2018

east asia

2018

introduction to audiobooks; belated introduction to literature

2012

continental europe

2015

west coast

2018

transitions

2005

ill-functioning turntables on eBay

2004

art class trip to new york

2011-12

occupy

2010-2011

undergrad fellowship at the jackman humanities institute

RESUME

edward d bacal is a multi-skilled, PhD-educated professional, with an inclination for creative vision and critical thinking. His skillset spans writing, design, content strategy, and web development, offering a holistic approach to digital and print media.

WRITING

edward d bacal writes mostly on modern & contemporary art / visual culture from north america, latin america, and europe. he is particularly interested in abstract and conceptual art since the 1960s, with emphasis on work that explores the political implications of formal innovations.

Bodies Withdrawn: The Ethics of Abstraction in Contemporary Post-Minimal Art

PhD Thesis (2018)

Review: Toronto Biennial of Art: The Shoreline Dilemma

ASAPJournal.com (December 17, 2019)

Review: Muscled Rose at Scrap Metal Gallery

CanadianArt.ca (August 14, 2019)

pervasive death: teresa margolles and the space of the corpse

human remains and violence 4/1 (2018)

The Concrete and the Abstract: On Doris Salcedo, Teresa Margolles and Santiago Sierra’s Tenuous Bodies

Parallax 76 (2016)

Up, Down, Left, Right: Some Thoughts on the Inverse, Reverse, and Double

FrameWork 4-16 (2015)

Sharon Lockhart and Steve McQueen: Inside the Frame of Structural Film

CineAction (2014)

Capitalism and Contemporaneity: On Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave

Kapsula (2014)

DESIGN

edward d bacal is a designer that specializes in digital media, including UI/UX design, graphics (still and animated), illustration, video editing, and front-end web development. He also draws with pen and paper
[client work available by request]

  • WEB PROJECTS

  • screenshot of Responsive Records page
    NAAAANA

    A short lived blog for art criticism I designed and coded as a project for a digital communications course.

    screenshot of Responsive Records page
    Responsive Records

    This site is an design project in which I recreate some of my favourite album covers in the context of a responsive web browser. I experiment with the possibilities and limitations that come with reinterpreting static, fixed-frame images as dynamic, interactive layouts, including animations and functionality via JavaScript.

    screenshot of Responsive Records page
    Grids: A Short Introduction

    Grids is a "web essay" on the role of the grid in the history of art and visual culture. This project marries my background as an art historian with my work in web design. It demonstrates both a practical exploration of CSS grid as a design tool and an experiment in creative web-publishing, with an emphasis on creating more engaging user experiences in educational content.

    screenshot of Responsive Records page
    Osprey: Online Edition

    This page hosts the digital version of an illustrated kids book I made for my niece. While the book also exists in a conventional form, the online edition is formatted to engage users through interactive functions, a centralized layout, and animations. Because the book doesn't follow a linear structure, the site invites users to click on different sections in any order.

    screenshot of CE Art Trace page
    CE Art Trace

    This React app displays items from the Harvard Art Museums' collection of over 230,000 items. When users select a medium, the app calls the institution's API and returns a randomly selected object from that classification, displaying an image, title, name, and date.

    screenshot of CE Art Trace page
    Buds for Suds

    This interactive app serves as a beer companion app that draws on a REST api to pair craft beer selections with a complimentary food choice. Users can submit a food-related term and receive a list of appropriate results, displaying the name, label, and description of each drink (apropriately, I don't even drink beer).

    screenshot of CE Art Trace page
    Bulldog Book Club

    This app models an dynamic interface for digital publications, as a more user-friendly alternative to traditional e-texts. Having found that most publishers overlook UI and UX concerns by sticking to traditional print layouts, I sought to develop front-end solutions for long-form texts and volumes, which benefit from in-browser experience.

  • GRAPHIC DESIGN

  • bikechain 2021 annual report Poster for Aesthetic Spatialities: Space, Place, & Spacing Panel Poster for Aesthetics as Politics: Art, Society, Culture Panel Poster for Harriet Sonne de Torrens Lecture Poster for Margaret English Lecture Poster for Amy Wallace Lecture Poster for Emily Doucet Lecture Poster for Sara Angel Lecture Poster for Seeing is Believing Conference Poster for Objects & Affects Conference Poster for Objects & Affects Conference Poster for Show & Tell panel Poster for Show & Tell panel Poster for Bodies Withdrawan colloquium Poster for Image as Vortex conference
  • DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION

  • Illustration of a french bulldog illustration of a lucky-cat style statue with a french bulldog head Illustration of a french bulldog Page from Suds and His Buds featuring an illustration of a Bulldog with an eyepatch Illustration of a Bulldog wearing eyeglasses Illustration of a monstera leaf Illustration of a playground truck illustration of a minivan illustration of the name Rowan, on top of rowantree leaves illustration of a dog illustration of a commercial tower illustration of a comically elongated basset-hound
  • INK ILLUSTRATION

  • portrait of a man's face close up drawing of a woman holding a flower abstract line drawing drawing of a french bulldog with decorative background semi-abstract drawing of two pugs drawing of a french bulldog abstract line-drawing drawing of a french bulldog holding a rose drawing of a man's face