GARRETT LAROY JOHNSON

| ABOUT | PROJECTS | NOW | TEACHING | CV

about

I'm an media artist, theorist, researcher, educator, writer, organizer, and programmer.

My generalist approach to media allows me to work broadly across disciplines, domains, and institutions with specialization in generative and responsive computational media and post-psychoanalytic/post-cybernetic process philosophy.

My work revolves around questions of subjectivity in group dynamics.

teaching

I've taught both art and technology studio courses and theory seminars at a variety of institutions of higher education as instructor of record since 2019. Currently I teach in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's Art and Technology / Sound Practices department and at the University of Illinois Chicago's New Media Art division.

I have hosted recent syllabi and course materials online at https://practices.digital since 2020.

More at teaching.

education

I received my PhD in Media Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University in December 2022. I also earned a Critical Theory certificate. At graduation, I was recognized as the outstanding graduate student of the Art and Design college. ASU made a nice video about me.

I have an MA in musicology and a B.Music in Music History from Ohio University. I studied German intensively in undergrad and received a DAAD award to study musicology at the University of Leipzig in 2012.

research

I'm currently writing two articles for publication:

My current talks can be found on my "now" page, or my cv.

My dissertation, defended in November 2022, is available here. I am looking for a position that will support building this work out into a monograph.

international recognition

I have presented research at MOCO, ISEA, SEAMUS, SLSA and SLSAeu, ACLA, AAG, and has had works performed and exhibited at Kennedy Center as well as the National Academy of Sciences in DC, in London, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Irvine, and Phoenix.

organization

My work invites artists in the 21st century to think and experiment with (para)institutional organizational techniques as an expressive medium. Major examples of this in my practice include:

lab research

I am a currently a post-doc researcher at Leonardo/ISAST. I am also an affiliate researcher at Synthesis Center. I also worked as an experimental fellow at the Center for Philosophical Technologies (2018-2019).

arts practice

My arts practice has been featured internationally at art world and interdisciplinary venues alike. odes

Currently my arts practice works in three areas: sound hardware/software, relation dynamics and institutional organizing, and image making.

In sound I maintain an active solo performance practice in Chicago and beyond. I write my own software instruments in Gen~ and load them onto hardware I have designed and built. I am interested in how the iterative interplay between software and hardware can help me to rethink/refeel/rework the modularity of signal processing and event sequencing flows in real-time improvisatory performance.

Throughout my graduate school years, I created responsive media environments + installations interactive dance works, various performances for live electronics and cello, laptop orchestra pieces, and sound-based fixed media. I've worked and practiced as an improviser with experimental electronic performance, e.g. with the dark/ambient group Gulch, and with cello and laptop in the group gbjjck. My performative and installation works with live electronic has been featured to SEAMUS, the Oh My Ears! Music Marathon, Interference Series and the ACDA at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

music and musicology background

In 2015, I completed an MA in Musicology at Arizona State University, where he wrote a masters thesis investigating the role of the body in David Rosenboom's exploratory use of electroencephalography in musical performance. During my masters, I presented some of his musicological investigations into the the bioregional music of experimental American composer David Dunn and the psycho-dramaturgy of Wolfgang Rihm’s opera Dionysos (2010) at various conferences in the US and Canada.

I hold a Bachelor of Music in Music History with a minor in German from Ohio University. The 2011 Deutsche Akademische Austausch Dienst (DAAD) undergraduate scholarship award supported my study and research at the University of Leipzig, where I also performed and toured with the Leipziger Universitaets Orchester, took courses at the Institut der Musikwissenschaft, was awarded the highest certification in the German language (DSH-3). For my Bachelors thesis, I investigated the music of Swiss composer-pianist Nik Bärtsch from the perspective of the Swiss jazz-classical scene. The research was supported by two months field work in Zurich and Bern.