An academic and author, he is involved in various curatorial and artistic collaborations, such as the one with Abelardo Gil-Fournier. Parikka is currently Professor of Aesthetics and Digital Culture at the University of Aarhus.

He is also a visiting professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, as well as at the Winchester School of Art (UK). His books include Insect Media (2010), Digital Contagions (2007/2016), A Geology of Media (2015) and A Slow, Contemporary Violence (2016).

He has recently co-edited Photography Off the Scale (2021, with Tomáš Dvořák) and co-authored The Lab Book: Situated Practices in Media Studies (2022, with Lori Emerson and Darren Wershler). His book Operational Images will be published in 2023. His work focuses on the intersections between aesthetics, digital culture and ecology.