Jeffrey Shaw

Jeffrey Shaw Melbourne (October 23, 1944) has been a leading figure in new media art since its emergence from the performance, expanded cinema and installation paradigms of the 1960s to today’s technology-informed and virtualized forms. In a prolific career of widely exhibited and critically acclaimed work he has pioneered the creative use of digital media technologies in the fields of expanded cinema, virtual and augmented reality, immersive visualization environments, navigable cinematic systems and interactive narrative. The work of Jeffrey Shaw occupies a central position in the art+tech electronic media movement: “…his works co-created, co–constructed the genre, gave it its initial contours.” (Prof. Peter Weibel, CEO, ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany).

Shaw’s artworks are milestones of technological and cultural innovation that have had seminal impact on the theory, design and application of digital media in art, society and industry, and his artistic achievements are amongst the most cited in new media literature.
These include include “Corpocinema“ (1969), “Viewpoint“ (1975), the laser and slide shows for the GENESIS world tours in the mid 70’s, “Points of View“ (1983), “Narrative Landscape“ (1985), “Inventer la Terre“ (1986), “Heavens Gate“ (1987), “Legible City“ (1989), “The Virtual Museum“ (1991), “EVE“ (1993), “Golden Calf“ (1995), “conFiguring the CAVE“ (1997), “The Web of Life“ (2000), “PLACE-Hampi“ (2006), “T_Visionarium“ (2008), “Pure Land“ (2012), “The Infinite Line“ (2014), “Recombinatory Poetry Wheel“ (2018) and “WYSIWYG“ (2019).

During his career his works have been presented at leading public galleries museums including the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Centre Georges Pompidou Paris, Kunsthalle Bern, Guggenheim Museum New York and Hayward Gallery London. Besides his personal artistic research, Shaw has been active in conceiving, curating and producing major international exhibitions, publications and conferences series during his tenure at respectively the ZKM Karlsruhe, UNSW Australia and City University Hong Kong.

Shaw was the co-founder of the Eventstructure Research Group Amsterdam (1969-1979), founding director of the ZKM Institute for Visual Media Karlsruhe, Germany (1991–2002), and an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and founding director of the iCinema Research Center at UNSW Australia (2003–2008), Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University of Hong Kong (2009–2015). Currently he is Chair Professor at the Academy of Visual Arts Hong Kong Baptist University, and Visiting Professor at the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China.

Besides his artistic research, Shaw has been active in conceiving, curating and producing major international exhibitions and publications.

Shaw’s many awards include Immagine Elettronica Prize, Ferrara, Italy, 1990; Oribe Award, Gifu, Japan 2005; Lifetime Achievement Award, Society of Art and Technology, Montreal, Canada, 2014; Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Visionary Pioneer of Media Art, Linz, Austria, 2015; ACM SIGGRAPH Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art, 2020