Expanding human creativity through art, science  & technology

Jon McCormack studied filmmaking, applied mathematics and computer science. For over 30 years he has worked at the forefront of applying technology to the expansion of human creativity.

Biography

Jon McCormack works at the nexus of art, technology and society. His experimental practice is driven by an enduring interest in computing and incorporates generative art, music and sound art, evolutionary systems, computer creativity, physical computing and artificial intelligence. Inspired by the complexity and wonder of the natural world, his work is concerned with electronic ‘after natures’: alternate forms of artificial life which, due to unfettered human progress and development, may one day replace a lost biological nature.

His artworks have been widely exhibited worldwide at leading galleries, museums and symposia, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Tate Gallery (Liverpool, UK), ACM SIGGRAPH (USA), Prix Ars Electronica (Austria), Moscow Museum of Modern Art and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Australia). He is the recipient of over 18 awards for media art and computing research including prizes at Ars Electronica (Austria), Nagoya Biennial (Japan), the 2012 Eureka Prize for Innovation in Computer Science and the 2016 Lumen Prize for digital art (still images).

Professor McCormack is also a highly regarded academic in the field of generative art and design, with his work featured in the world's top science journal, Nature. He is the founder and director of SensiLab, a unique trans-disciplinary research space dedicated to experimental research in creative technologies at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has been the recipient of a number of major research fellowships, including an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2017-2021) and Australian Research Fellowship (2010-2015), a research fellowship at the Ars Electronica Future Lab in Linz, Austria (2008-2009) and an Australia Council for the Arts Media Arts Fellowship (2000-2004).

He is also the inventor of the generative music software Nodal, which was commercialised in 2009 and is today used by thousands of musicians all over the world.