Groundbreaking computational artist Jason Salavon discusses innovating new media while sustaining a lineage from art history. In this studio visit, Salavon gives advice on simultaneously developing creative and business aspects of a career and relates his thoughts on grad school, building relationships with galleries, selling artwork, and teaching in a university.
“Find spaces where there aren’t crowds of people around you. Here’s what I mean by spaces: spaces for making. So if the hip thing to do is make this one kind of abstraction, I would avoid it like the plague... You get to be alone in a space and explore it on your own and figure it out, and hopefully, have the world come to you.”
Jason Salavon designs software processes to manipulate data and images sourced from popular culture and everyday life, resulting in the creation of photographic works, video installations, and software-based artworks. He completed a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin (1993) and an M.F.A. in Art and Technology at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (1997) and worked as a programmer in the video game industry for several years. He has been awarded a Creative Capital Foundation Grant (2000), and his work is held in many collections nationally, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Currently, Salavon is an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Chicago.