Jeff Thompson

Associate Professor
Visual Art & Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology
studio@jeffreythompson.org

Born: Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Lives: Bloomfield, New Jersey, USA

Instagram

Github

Education

Master of Fine Arts

Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of Art (2006)

Bachelor of Fine Arts

Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2004)

Solo Exhibitions and Performances

Slough of Despond (2023)
The Mudroom; Lawrenceville, New Jersey, USA

Universal Approximator (2020)
SPACES; Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Human Computers (2020)
Locust Projects; Miami, Florida, USA

First There Is A Mountain, Then There Is No Mountain, Then There Is (2018)
King's College, University of Cambridge; Cambridge, England

I Touch You And You Touch Me (2017)
Harvestworks; New York, New York, USA

White Noise Boutique (2015)
Brighton Digital Festival; Brighton, England

Impossible In Another Form (2014)
George Mason University Gallery; Fairfax, Virginia, USA

A Very Deep Saxophone And A Very Long Guitar (2013, with Damon Lee)
Sheldon Museum of Art; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Seam Sorting (2013)
LEVEL Gallery, Lawrence Technological University; Detroit, Michigan, USA

Glistening Waves (2011)
Harvestworks; New York City, New York, USA

Lamination (2008)
Local Project; Long Island City, New York, USA

Wavering Cedar and 100,000 Blades of Grass (2007)
Department of Safety; Anacortes, Washington, USA

Recording Exchange (2006)
Hogar Collection Gallery; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions/Performances

2023

GUI/GOOEY
Plexus Projects (online)

Recode (PCD23)
University of Porto, Faculty of Fine Arts; Porto, Portugal

2022

Total Information Awareness
Grizzly Grizzly; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition
ArtWorks; Trenton, New Jersey, USA

2021

Athens Digital Art Festival
Athens, Greece

2020

Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts Exhibition
University of Hartford; Hartford, Connecticut, USA

Also Tubes
Unrequited Leisure; Nashville, Tennessee, USA

The Virtual is (Always) Already Real
Bronx Art Space; New York City, New York, USA

2019

e/co,li:b-re.bel
Piksel Festival for Electronic Art and Free Technologies; Bergen, Norway

Future Relics
Vector Festival/InterAccess; Toronto, Canada

Do or Delegate
Onomatopee; Eindhoven, Netherlands

Who Does What
Drugo More Gallery; Rijeka, Croatia

2018

Machine Learning for Creativity and Design
NeurIPS 2018 Conference; Montréal, Canada

Tufts Public/Wave Farm in Residence
Tufts University; Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Digital Spring Festival
Salzburger Kunstverein; Salzburg, Austria

Future Perfect
Hygienic Gallery; New London, Connecticut, USA

2017

Wave Farm 1997–2017: Twenty Performances for Twenty Years
Fridman Gallery; New York, New York, USA

0x
Terra Gallery/Ethereal Summit; San Francisco, California, USA

Radical Networks
Brooklyn, New York, USA

Mind-Body Dualism
SIGGRAPH Asia 2017; Bangkok, Thailand

Root Signals Festival
Georgia Southern University; Statesboro, Georgia, USA

Arts on Division Video Festival
Somerville, New Jersey, USA

2016

Sound_Attempt_Error
Like A Little Disaster/Omphalos Gallery; Terlizzi, Bari, Italy

Art of Bots
Somerset House/Abandon Normal Devices; London, England

Art2Code
College Art Association Conference; Washington DC, USA

Game On! El Arte En Juego
Buenos Aires, Argentina

2015

Technologism
Monash University Museum of Art; Melbourne, Australia

/mit ðe dete/: Source Materials Visualized
The Center for Book Arts; New York, New York, USA

Somewhere In-Between
ArtHelix; Brooklyn, New York, USA

2014

Inverted Normals
Rowan University; Glassboro, New Jersey, USA

Into Thin Words
LALD Space; Polignano a Mare, Italy

Weird Science
Kunsthalle Galapagos; Brooklyn, New York, USA

INTERP
Turbulence (online)

Code Poetry Slam 1.1
Stanford University; Stanford, California, USA

First Annual Invitational Exhibition
Kunsthalle Galapagos; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Net.Works 2.0
Vector Game + Art Festival; Toronto, Canada

Computers on Law & Order
Rhizome/Museum of the Moving Image; Queens, New York, USA

2013

Hammer, Anvil, Stirrup: People Make Things That Make Sounds
Lux Center for the Arts; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

2012

Code Conference: Media, Games, and Art
Swinburne University of Technology; Melbourne, Australia

10th Annual Piksel Festival
Bergen, Norway

2011

Redact/Froth/Expand/Smash/Stitch: New Video Works
Sheldon Museum of Art; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

WATCH IT!
Taubman Museum of Art; Roanoke, Virginia

A Very Long Guitar
Bemis Center for Contemporary Art; Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Clattering Bits (with Angeles Cossio)
Not Festival; New York City, New York, USA

Bring Your Own Beamer
grrrilla galleries; Linz, Austria

2010

{SØNIK} v2.0 Festival
Bronx Art Space; New York City, New York, USA

One Night Stand (part of the The Dissolve biennial)
SITE Santa Fe; Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

Sounding Landscapes
Shu-box Theatre, University of Regina; Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

The Product of Exchange
Sudhaus; Berlin, Germany

New York City Electroacoustic Music Festival
Graduate Center, City University of New York; New York, New York, USA

Wyatt Nash and Jeff Thompson
Local Project; Long Island City, New York, USA

Reduplication of the Real
Tactile Bosch Gallery; Cardiff, Wales

2009

13th International Video Festival VIDEOMEDEJA
Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina; Novi Sad, Serbia

Kunstfilmtag
Malkasten Theater; Düsseldorf, Germany

… a very loud silence
Le Flash; Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Academia Invitational
Museum of Nebraska Art; Kearney, Nebraska, USA

Investigations of Place
Jersey City Museum; Jersey City, New Jersey, USA

Material Reciprocity
Possible Projects; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Resonance in Residence
3rd Ward; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Dis-Echo-Nance
Hunter College Times Square Gallery; New York, New York, USA

2008

Altered Landscapes
Salisbury University Electronic Gallery; Salisbury, Maryland, USA

Transart Institute Faculty Exhibition
BV Gallery; Linz, Austria

2007

Music Reclamation Project
Hogar Collection Gallery; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Art
Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Performance for Oranges
White Box Gallery; New York, New York, USA

Re-Surfacing
Hopkins Hall Gallery, Ohio State University; Columbus, Ohio, USA

2006

All the Kings Horses
Asterix Gallery; Cleveland, OH

SoundLab – Memoryscapes
Al Kahf Art Gallery; Bethlehem, Palestine
Contemporary Art Museum; Casoria/Naples, Italy
Museo Arte Contemporaneo; Santa Fe, Argentina
Offizyna Art Space; Szczencin, Poland

The Whole is the Sum of Its Parts
Hogar Collection; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Stolen Time
Dam Stuhltrager; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Fresh Meat/Young Blood
Shore Institute for Contemporary Art; Long Branch, New Jersey, USA

Crossed Circuits
Hogar Collection; Brooklyn, New York, USA

2005

First Look
New Jersey Center for Visual Arts; Summit, New Jersey, USA

Diagram and Scribble Archives
Stony Brook University Gallery; Stony Brook, New York, USA

Spectrum: Works on Paper
Hogar Collection; Brooklyn, New York, USA

Sight/Sound: New Performance
Rutgers University; New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper Exhibition
Mason Gross Gallery, Rutgers University; New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

2004

ISC 2004 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture
Grounds for Sculpture; Hamilton, New Jersey, USA

Box Fresh
Soap Factory; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Residencies

Stove Works (2024)
Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA

New Jersey Craft Artist Residency (2023)
Peters Valley School of Craft; Layton, New Jersey, USA

MacDowell (2022)
Peterborough, New Hampshire, USA

SPACES (2020)
Cleveland, Ohio, USA

University of Nevada, Reno (2019/21)
Reno, Nevada, USA

Visiting Fellow, King's College (2018)
University of Cambridge; Cambridge, England

Willipa Bay (2018)
Oysterville, Washington, USA

Wave Farm (2017)
Acra, New York, USA

Bell Labs (2016)
Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA

Center for New Art (2016)
William Patterson University; Wayne, New Jersey, USA

Impakt (2014)
Utrecht, Netherlands

Holland Computing Center (2009-2013)
University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Internet Archive Curatorial Residency (2012, online)

Elsewhere Artist Collaborative (2007, 2009)
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA

Vermont Studio Center (2006)
Johnson, Vermont, USA

Department of Safety (2007)
Anacortes, Washington, USA

Awards, Commissions, and Funding

HASS Faculty Research Fellowship (2024–25)

Artist book commission (2021)
Black Rock Press/University of Nevada, Reno; Reno, Nevada, USA

Emergency Grant (2019)
Foundation for Contemporary Art; New York, New York, US

New Jersey Individual Artist Fellowship (2019)

Nokia Bell Labs Faculty Fellow in the Arts (2018)

Digital Spring Festival commission (2018)
Salzburg, Austria

Lumen Prize (2017)
Short-listed for the Still Image award
Nominated and long-listed for the British Computer Society award for Art and AI

Brighton Digital Festival commission (2015)
Brighton, England

Turbulence.org commission (2014)
New York/Massachusetts, USA

Creativity + Technology = Enterprise Grant (2013)
Harvestworks; New York, New York, USA

Research Council Grant-in-Aid (2013)
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Rhizome commission (2012)
New York, New York, USA

Nebraska Research Initiatives Grant (2012)
Co-PI with Holland Computing Center; University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Van Lier Fellowship (2008)
Harvestworks; New York, New York, USA

Dispatx.com commission (2007)

Nadine Goldsmith Fellowship (2006)
Vermont Studio Center; Johnson, Vermont, USA

VanDerlip Travel Award (2004)
Minneapolis College of Art and Design; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

Press

Selected reviews and interviews include...

  • ANIMAL
  • The Atlantic
  • AV Club (The Onion)
  • Boston Globe
  • Brooklyn Rail
  • CNET
  • Comedy Central
  • Creator’s Project
  • Gizmodo
  • Huffington Post
  • Hyperallergic
  • Kill Screen
  • Laughing Squid
  • MAKE
  • Marketplace (National Public Radio)
  • Neural
  • Paste Magazine
  • PetaPixel
  • SciArt Magazine
  • Sculpture Magazine
  • Spark (CBC)
  • Time.com
  • The Verge
  • Washington Post
  • Wired.co.uk
  • Yahoo Tech

Lectures

Chairs and Supercomputers: Artists and AI
O'Reilly AI Conference (2019); New York, New York, USA

Building Next-Step Resources
Processing Community Day/New School (2019); New York, New York, USA

Chairs and Supercomputers: Artists and AI
Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (2018); Cambridge, England

Empty Apartments
Photo History/Photo Future Conference 2018; Rochester, New York, USA

Chairs and Supercomputers
Bell Labs (2016); Murray Hill, New Jersey, USA

Computers on Law & Order
Digital Humanities Conference 2016; Kraków, Poland

Computers on Law & Order
Keystone Ditigital Humanities Conference 2015; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Computers on Law & Order
HASTAC Conference 2015; East Lansing, Michigan, USA

The 12-Hour Class Period: Game Jams and Hackathons as a Classroom Model
FATE Conference 2015; Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

Transmission and Openness: Strategies for the Geographically and Economically Disadvantaged
FATE Conference 2013; Savannah, Georgia, USA

Art and Supercomputers
TEDxUNL (2012); Sheldon Museum of Art; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Data, Poetics, and Supercomputers
SECAC Conference 2011; Savannah, Georgia, USA

Data as Medium (panel chair)
College Art Association Annual Conference, 2011; New York, New York, USA

Data as a Creative Visual Medium (panel chair)
Harvestworks (2008); New York, New York, USA

Sound and Data
College Art Association 2008; Dallas, Texas, USA

Artist talks include...

  • Anglia Ruskin University
  • Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of Cambridge
  • Harvestworks
  • Heong Gallery, University of Cambridge
  • New York Electronic Arts Festival
  • Ohio University
  • Princeton University
  • University of Cincinatti
  • University of Hartford
  • University of Nevada, Reno
  • University of North Texas
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Webster College
  • William Paterson University

Teaching

2013–present

Associate Professor (2019–present)
Assistant Professor (2013–2019)
Program Director (2013–2021)
Visual Arts & Technology
Stevens Institute of Technology; Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

Courses include...

  • Creative Programming 1, 2, and 3
  • Designing with Data
  • Physical Computing
  • Technology and the Landscape
  • Professional Practices
  • Capstone 1 and 2

2022–present

PhD advisor
Transart Institute; Liverpool, England

2019

Georgette and Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts
University of Hartford; Hartford, Connecticut, USA

2009–2013

Assistant Professor of Digital Arts/New Genres
University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

2008–2009

Adjunct Professor of Digital Art and Video
Montclair State University; Montclair, New Jersey, USA

2006–2007

Faculty and mentor
Transart Institute MFA Program; Linz, Austria

Workshops and Other Teaching

Chance and Randomness (2021)
Transart Institute PhD seminar; online

View Source: A Web Digging Workshop (2016, 2019)
Digital Humanities Conference; Kraków, Poland
New York Electronic Arts Festival; New York, New York, USA

Instrument-a-thon (2018)
Organized with Seth Cluett and Lainie Fefferman
Stevens Institute of Technology; Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

Games++ (2014–2016)
Organized with Alex Myers; various locations

Curatorial Platforms

Drift Station (2010–present)
Co-founder with Angeles Cossio
Lincoln, Nebraska, USA and various other locations/online

Texas Firehouse (2007-2009)
Co-founder
Long Island City, New York, USA

Selected Exhibitions/Performances Curated

* notes exhibitions curated with Angeles Cossio as part of Drift Station

Printed Data (2021)
University of Nevada, Reno Libraries
Exhibition of books of printed data and related ephemera from my own collection and gathered from the UNR libraries

Empty Apartments (2017)*
Drift Station (online at emptyapartments.net)
Online exhibition of 125,000 images of apartments for rent, scraped from Craigslist and sorted by visual similarity

Texts from the Network (2016)
Radical Networks; Brooklyn, New York, USA
An evening of readings from texts found online by Allison Parrish (selections from Wikidata’s ontological labels and a sorted list of face emoji), Ranjit Bhatnagar (Google’s automatic transcription of a low-quality scan of an issue of Filth, a zine from the 1980s), Daniel Temkin (selections from Internet Directory, a phonebook-style listing of 115-million .com domains in alphabetical order)

Field Guide (2012)*
Drift Station; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Publication of a practical handbook for starting and artist-run space

Bookstore (2012)*
Drift Station; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Exhibition of nearly 1,200 artist books, zines, and other print publications

10,000 Pixels (2012)
Art Micro-Patronage, online
International online exhibition of works exploring extreme limitation

Chopped & Stretched (2011)*
Drift Station; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Show of sound art and music using very short and very long sounds; exhibition included release of a limited edition compilation CD

mailto: (2011)*
Drift Station; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
An email address turned into an exhibition; anything sent was printed and hung in the gallery

Find & Replace (2011)
Drift Station; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Exhibition exploring the atomistic units of digital media

Work Makes the Work (2010)
Eisentrager Howard Gallery; University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Exhibition of work by artists exploring how the physical means of production creates meaning in their work

Stored & Filtered: Time, Technology, and the Landscape (2009)
Texas Firehouse; Long Island City, New York, USA
Show examining the landscape through the lens of technology