Golan Levin

Levin received a self-designed Bachelor's degree in Art and Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994, and a Master's degree in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab in 2000, as a student in John Maeda's Aesthetics and Computation Group (ACG). Between degrees, Levin worked as an interface designer at Paul Allen's Interval Research Corporation, where he was introduced to the field of interactive new media art by Michael Naimark, Brenda Laurel, and Scott Snibbe, among others. Levin was an Eyebeam resident in 2002 and 2003.{{Cite web|title = Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman {{!}} eyebeam.org|url = http://eyebeam.org/people/golan-levin-and-zachary-lieberman|website = eyebeam.org|access-date = 28 January 2016|archive-date = February 6, 2016|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160206053251/http://eyebeam.org/people/golan-levin-and-zachary-lieberman|url-status = dead}}{{Cite web|title = Golan Levin : Messa di Voce|url = http://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=364|website = fondation-langlois.org|access-date = 1 February 2016}}

After his graduate work at MIT, Levin taught computational design in various schools in New York City, including Columbia University, Cooper Union, and Parsons School of Design before accepting a position at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in 2004. Levin is currently Associate Professor of Electronic Time Based Art in the CMU School of Art,{{Cite web |url=http://artserver.cfa.cmu.edu/facultylist.jsp?Page=107&Section=106 |title=CMU : School of Art |access-date=March 25, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610135517/http://artserver.cfa.cmu.edu/facultylist.jsp?Page=107&Section=106 |archive-date=June 10, 2007 |url-status=dead }} with courtesy appointments in the CMU School of Computer Science, School of Design, School of Architecture, and Entertainment Technology Center. There he teaches computation arts and researches new intersections of machine code and visual culture.Wolf Lieser. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009. p. 135 From 2009–2023, Levin also held the position of Director of the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at CMU,{{Cite web |url=http://www.cmu.edu/studio |title=STUDIO: Home page |access-date=February 9, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090218211414/http://www.cmu.edu/studio/ |archive-date=February 18, 2009 |url-status=dead }} an interdisciplinary research unit dedicated to supporting projects at the intersection of arts and technology.

File:Golan Levin in 2005.jpg

Golan Levin's artwork focuses on the design of systems for the creation, manipulation and performance of simultaneous image and sound, as part of a more general inquiry into formal languages of interactivity and of nonverbal communication in cybernetic systems. Through performances, digital artifacts, and virtual environments, often created with a variety of collaborators, Levin applies creative twists to digital technologies that highlight our relationship with machines, make visible our ways of interacting with each other, and explore the intersection of abstract communication and interactivity.Wolf Lieser. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009. pp. 251–53 From 2002–2007, Levin and Zachary Lieberman collaborated on a variety of projects together, using the name Tmema to represent their collective work.{{cite web|url=http://www.tmema.org/|title=tmema|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=September 21, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070921124918/http://www.tmema.org/|url-status=dead}}

Levin's projects include the Free Universal Construction Kit (2012),{{Cite AV media |url=https://vimeo.com/37778172 |title=The Free Universal Construction Kit |language=en |access-date=2025-04-12 |via=vimeo.com}} a collection of 3D-printable adapters for popular toy construction systems, developed in collaboration with R. Shawn Sims, which is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.{{Cite web|url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/189160|title=Golan Levin, Shawn Sims. Free Universal Construction Kit. 2012 | MoMA|website=The Museum of Modern Art}} Levin also led collaborations to develop Terrapattern (2016), an open-ended tool to support visual query-by-example in satellite imagery,{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2016/05/terrapattern-like-search-engine-satellite-imagery/|title=Terrapattern is like a search engine for satellite imagery|magazine=WIRED}} and Augmented Hand Series (2014), a real-time interactive software system that presents playful, dreamlike, and uncanny transformations of its visitors’ hands.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/2015/01/watch-code-warp-peoples-hands-trippy-visuals/|title=Watch an experiment that turns people's hands into creepy visuals|magazine=WIRED}}

Levin has exhibited, performed, and lectured widely in Europe, America and Asia. His work has been shown at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Kitchen, the Neuberger Museum, and The Whitney Biennial, all in New York City; Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria;http://www.aec.at/en/mainSearch/test.asp?text1=Golan%20Levin# {{Dead link|date=February 2022}} The Museum of Contemporary Art in Taipei, Taiwan; The NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, Japan; the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe, Germany; and MoMA,{{Cite web |last=Crook |first=Phillip |date=2025-01-13 |title=Professor Golan Levin’s Work Featured in MoMA’s "Pirouette: Turning Points in Design" |url=https://art.cmu.edu/news/faculty-news/golan-levins-moma/ |access-date=2025-04-12 |website=School of Art {{!}} Carnegie Mellon University |language=en-US}} among other venues. His funding credits include grants from Creative Capital,{{cite web|url=http://creative-capital.org/grantees/view/65/project:52|title=Creative Capital – Investing in Artists who Shape the Future|access-date=August 23, 2009|archive-date=April 18, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090418062532/http://creative-capital.org/grantees/view/65/project:52|url-status=dead}} The New York State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Rockefeller MAP Fund, The Greenwall Foundation, the Langlois Foundation, Turbulence.org, and the Arts Council England.

File:Golan Levin at RMCAD.jpg

Levin's work combines equal measures of the whimsical, the provocative, and the sublime in a wide variety of online, installation and performance media.

• Audiovisual Environment Suite (2000), a set of five interactive systems which allow people to create and perform abstract animation and synthetic sound in real time.{{Cite web|url=https://acg.media.mit.edu/people/golan/aves/|title=Audiovisual Environment Suite (AVES)|website=acg.media.mit.edu}} It was granted an Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica (Interactive Art category).
• Scribble (2000),{{Cite web|url=https://acg.media.mit.edu/people/golan/scribble/|title=Scribble|website=acg.media.mit.edu}} features tightly-coupled sounds and dynamic visuals which are at times carefully scored, and at other times loosely improvised. Scribble has been presented in duo and trio formats at global festivals and venues. It is the Audiovisual Environment Suite's accompanying audiovisual performance.
• The Secret Lives of Numbers (2002),{{cite web|url=http://www.turbulence.org/Works/nums/|title=THE SECRET LIVES OF NUMBERS|first=Golan Levin et.|last=al.|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=February 20, 2002|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020220055415/http://www.turbulence.org/Works/nums/|url-status=dead}} an interactive information visualization about the "popularity" of numbers on the World Wide Web, granted an Award of Distinction in the Prix Ars Electronica (Net Art category). Commissioned by Turbulence.org.
• Dialtones: A Telesymphony (2001),{{cite web|url=http://www.flong.com/telesymphony/index.html|title=Dialtones (A Telesymphony) – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=September 24, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070924095645/http://www.flong.com/telesymphony/index.html|url-status=dead}} a concert whose sounds are wholly performed through the carefully choreographed dialing and ringing of the audience's own mobile phones.
• The Alphabet Synthesis Machine (2002),http://www.flong.com/storage/pdf/reports/alphabet_report.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=March 2022}} a genetic algorithm that generates imaginary writing systems. Developed in collaboration with Cassidy Curtis and Johnathan Feinberg.
• Re:MARK (2002), an installation for two participants which presents an interactive visualization of speech, using sounds spoken into a pair of microphones are analyzed and classified by a phoneme recognition system.{{Cite web|url=https://www.fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=364|title=Golan Levin : Messa di Voce|website=www.fondation-langlois.org}}{{cite web|url=http://www.flong.com/remark/index.html|title=Re:MARK – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=July 25, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080725010118/http://www.flong.com/remark/index.html|url-status=dead}}
• Messa di Voce (2003), installation piece using graphics interacting with sound.{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfoqiyB1ndE |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/GfoqiyB1ndE |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|title=Jaap Blonk performance – installation Messa di Voce|last=Super Uber|date=August 1, 2006|via=YouTube}}{{cbignore}}{{cite web|url=http://www.tmema.org/messa/|title=Messa Text|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=September 12, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070912134807/http://www.tmema.org/messa/|url-status=dead}} It was developed in collaboration with Zachary Lieberman.
• The Manual Input Sessions (2004), a series of audiovisual vignettes which probe the expressive possibilities of hand gestures and finger movements.{{cite web|url=http://thesystemis.com/projects/manual-input-sessions/|title=Manual Input Sessions|access-date=October 8, 2011|archive-date=October 29, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111029070204/http://thesystemis.com/projects/manual-input-sessions/|url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.tmema.org/mis/|title=MANUAL INPUT SESSIONS – TMEMA 2004–2006|first=Golan Levin, Zachary|last=Lieberman|access-date=September 21, 2007|archive-date=September 20, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070920190040/http://www.tmema.org/mis/|url-status=dead}} It was developed in collaboration with Zachary Lieberman.
• Scrapple (2005)
• Ursonography (2005),{{cite web|url=http://www.flong.com/projects/ursonography/index.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807083418/http://www.flong.com/projects/ursonography/index.html/|url-status=dead|archive-date=August 7, 2011|title=Ursonography – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators}} developed in collaboration with Jaap Blonk
• The Dumpster (2006){{cite web | url=http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/dumpster.shtml | title=Whitney Artport Commissions: The Dumpster | access-date=September 21, 2007 | archive-date=September 11, 2007 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070911040842/http://artport.whitney.org/commissions/thedumpster/dumpster.shtml | url-status=dead }} interactive information visualization.
• Eyecode (2007){{Cite web |url=http://www.flong.com/projects/eyecode/ |title=Eyecode – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators |access-date=May 14, 2009 |archive-date=April 21, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090421022547/http://www.flong.com/projects/eyecode/ |url-status=dead }} installation that reflects the viewer's gaze
• Opto-Isolator (2007){{Cite web |url=http://www.flong.com/projects/optoisolator/ |title=Opto-Isolator – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators |access-date=May 14, 2009 |archive-date=April 1, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090401075924/http://www.flong.com/projects/optoisolator/ |url-status=dead }} interactive sculpture that looks back at the viewer with a single embedded moving eye.
• Rectified flowers (2010){{cite web|url=http://www.flong.com/projects/rectified-flowers/|title=Rectified Flowers – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators|access-date=July 27, 2012|archive-date=August 15, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120815165015/http://www.flong.com/projects/rectified-flowers/|url-status=dead}} uses a polar-coordinates transform to create "landscapes" from images of flowers.
• Augmented Hand Series (2014){{cite web|url=http://www.flong.com/projects/augmented-hand-series/|title=Augmented Hand Series – Interactive Art by Golan Levin and Collaborators|access-date=March 9, 2017|archive-date=September 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200901132959/http://www.flong.com/projects/augmented-hand-series/|url-status=dead}} real-time interactive software system that presents playful, dreamlike, and uncanny transformations of its visitors' hands

Levin's most recent work centers around interactive robotics, machine vision, and the theme of gaze as a primary new mode for human-machine communication.

{{Cite web|url=https://www.bitforms.art/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=91|title=Home|website=bitforms gallery}}

Levin also did a Ted Talk discussing technology as art.{{cite web|url=http://www.ted.com/talks/golan_levin_ted2009?language=en|title=Art that looks back at you|date=July 30, 2009 }}

{{reflist}}

• Bruce Wands, Art of the Digital Age, Thames & Hudson, 2006. {{ISBN|0-500-23817-0}}.
• Mark Tribe and Reena Jana, New Media Art, Taschen, 2006. {{ISBN|3-8228-3041-0}}.
• Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito, [http://at-the-edge-of-art.com/ At the Edge of Art], Thames & Hudson. {{ISBN|0-500-23822-7}}.
• Wolf Lieser. Digital Art. Langenscheidt: h.f. ullmann. 2009.

{{Commons category}}

• [http://www.flong.com/ Levin's website]
• [http://www.tate.org.uk/netart/bvs/manovich.htm Article on The Dumpster by Lev Manovich]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20050317095244/http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=13008&int_modo=1 Artdaily.org article on Messa di Voce]
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/arts/design/28rhiz.html?_r=1&oref=slogin New York Times review of Rhizome ArtBase 101]
• {{TED speaker|golan_levin}}
• [http://www.ted.com/talks/golan_levin_on_software_as_art "Software (as) art" (TED2004)]
• [http://www.ted.com/talks/golan_levin_ted2009 "Art that looks back at you" (TED2009)]
• [http://artandcode.com/3d/ Art && Code 3D]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Levin, Golan}}

Category:1972 births

Category:Living people

Category:Carnegie Mellon University faculty

Category:American digital artists

Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni

Category:American modern artists