(Australian, 1964)
Jon McCormack is a Melbourne-based electronic media artist and academic. Since the late 1980s McCormack has worked with computer code as a medium for artistic expression. He holds degrees in Applied Mathematics and Visual Art, along with a PhD in Computer Science. Inspired by the complexity and wonder of a diminishing natural word, his work is concerned with electronic ‘after natures’ –alternate forms of Artificial Life that may one day replace the biological nature lost through human progress and development.
His artworks have been widely exhibited at leading international galleries, museums and symposia, including the Museum of Modern Art (New York, USA), Tate Gallery (Liverpool, UK), ACM SIGGRAPH (USA), Prix Ars Electronica (Austria) and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (Australia). His has received over 16 international awards for new media art including prizes at Ars Electronica (Austria), Images du Futur (Canada), New Voices, New Visions (USA), Alias/Wavefront (USA), The John Lansdown Award for Interactive Media (UK) and Nagoya Biennial (Japan).
The monograph Impossible Nature: the art of Jon McCormack was published by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in 2005 to widespread acclaim. The book documents McCormack’s creative achievements over the last 15 years and reflects on the philosophical and creative ideas behind his unique work.
McCormack is currently a research Professor at Monash University in Melbourne. He is also visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, and was recently artist-in-residence at the Ars Electronica Future Lab in Linz, Austria.
