ART FORMS
Installations, Video, Photography, Sculpture, Augmented Reality
MATERIAL / MEDIA
E-waste, 3d printing, video projection, Photography, Electronic Archives
FEATURED ARTWORK
Upgrade Available
GUIDING INTEREST
Julia Christensen is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. she works with technology and consumerism. Her work builds conversation between different areas of art, science, and social studies. In 2012 She had an unexpected visit to an e-waste landfill in India that inspired and developed her work for almost the last decade. In 2020, She published a book “Upgrade Available” that collected all her research since 2012. It featured nearly 50 artworks, with writings by Christensen but also collaborations with scientists and art institutions that are interested in innovative scientific research such as LACMA’s Art + Technology Lab and NASA’s JPL’s Innovation Foundry. She is interested in analyzing our upgrade culture habits and their effects on our electronic devices in relation to saving data and building archives for media collections.
QUOTES
“I wanted to illustrate how quickly the new becomes the old in the context of technology“
“So for my next upgrade, I want a phone I can eat when I’m done with it.”
VICE: We Talked To The Artist Turning E-Waste Into Projected Star Maps. Speaking about her project Burnouts, Julia Christensen interview, 2014
EXHIBITIONS SELECTIONS
2020 | Pasadena, CA | Artcenter College of Design | Upgrade Available
2018 | Los Angles, CA | Los Angeles County Museum of Art | Technology Time, Art + Tech Lab
2018 | New York | Ronald Feldman Gallery | Wave & Particle
2013 | Cleveland, OH | Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland | Realization is Better Than Anticipation
2008 | Minneapolis, MN | Walker Art Center | Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes
HONORS AND GRANTS
2018 | Guggenheim Fellowship
2015 | Ohio Arts Council | Individual Excellence Award
2014 | Sundance Institute | New Frontiers Story Lab Fellowship, Nominee
2013 | Creative Capital Grantee | Emerging Fields
ARTIST RESIDENCIES
2018 | University of Colorado | Media Archeology Lab
2015 | MacDowell Colony
2013-2014 | Colombus, Ohio | Ohio State University | Wexner Center for the Arts
2012 | Kerala, India | Tasara Centre for Creative Weaving
2010 | Owego, NY | Experimental Television Center
2005 | North Adams, MA | Contemporary Artist Center
BIO
Based in Oberlin, Ohio
1976 | born in the United States
FORMATION
2005 | New York | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | M.F.A. Integrated Electronic Arts
2003 | California | Mills College | M.F.A. Electronic Music and Recording Media
2000 | New York | Bard College | B.A. Integrated Arts
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2007-current | Oberlin College and Conservatory | Associate Professor of Integrated Media
2006 | California College of the Arts | Lecturer
LINKS TO WORK
INTERVIEWS
We Talked To The Artist Turning E-Waste Into Projected Star Maps by Willa Köerner – Vice magazine
‘We are enacting a planetary crisis with electronics’ – an interview with Julia Christensen by Gabrielle Schwarz – Apollo magazine
Julia Christensen Examines Our Obsession with Upgrading Technology b
