Photo by Rachel Leiner

Artist Statement

Eric Forman (b. 1973) is a digital media pioneer who has worked for over twenty years in the fusion of art, design, architecture, and technology. His work is focused on the playful investigation of language, simulation, and perception. Forman develops his own software and fabrication processes to create sculptures and installations that dynamically respond to viewers and other physical phenomena. Underneath all is a drive to reveal the uncertain present of human and technological co-evolution: the overlappings of natural and artificial, real and simulated, person and machine.

Forman’s oeuvre creates modes of interaction not often found in dominant forms of new media: subtle, slow, surprising. Balancing the delightful with the unsettling, the work plays on our uneasy fascination with new technology, without denying its magical qualities. The technical complexity in this work is sometimes transparently revealed as worthy of reflection, while at other times hidden to focus on the nature of perception itself. Forman’s work is to be experienced, not just seen, imbuing craftsmanship and engineering with mystery, difficulty, and beauty.


Curator's Statement

Rahel Aima on "Eric Forman, Selected Works 2000 — 2021."

"There’s an accelerationist current that runs through much new media art today. A kind of gesture performance takes place between the work and the viewer: waving an arm perhaps, or otherwise trying to trigger a motion sensor. Interaction is primarily predicated on the frisson of speed, reaction, and connectivity. This dynamic gets subverted in Eric Forman’s multivalent practice, which spans over two decades and traverses the worlds of art, technology, architecture, and design." [Read more...]


Bio

Currently based in Brooklyn, Eric started programming as a child in the 1980s, wrote about virtual reality in the early 1990s, and was part of the groundbreaking online media entity Pseudo Programs in the mid 1990s. Eric Forman Studio was founded in 2003, and in 2012 became a founding member of Newlab, a next generation innovation space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Eric's artwork has been shown at the New Museum, MoMA, Times Square, the Château de Compiègne, Exit Art, and many others around the world, including in orbit around the planet Earth. His studio’s design practice specializes in the latest interactive experiences and fabrication techniques for diverse clients. Eric is also the co-founder of BioArt New York, a collective pairing artists and biologists for unusual collaborations. 

Eric received his Masters in 2002 from ITP at Tisch School of the Arts (NYU), and his B.A. from Vassar College in 1995 where he developed his own interdisciplinary program called “The Philosophical Ramifications of Computer Technology.” His thesis work there was a pioneering academic investigation of virtual reality and its potential impact on space, ontology, and identity.

Eric is currently faculty and Head of Innovation at the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA (School of Visual Arts). He has previously taught at the Digital+Media MFA department at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University, Parsons The New School for Design, the Interactive Arts MFA department at Pratt Institute, the Interdisciplinary Sculpture department of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), and many others. He also likes to ride a bike.





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