Daniel Shanken completed his BFA in Fine Art Media at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2006, and his MFA in Art Practice at Goldsmiths University of London in 2012.
He works with electronics, coding, various materials, and imaging devices to create installations, video, sculpture, sound, and media that probe relationships between technology and cognition. His work has been shown internationally at venues such as Stanley Picker Gallery, ICA London, Art Basel Hong Kong, Whitechapel Gallery, CCA Glasgow, Nottingham Contemporary, CFCCA Manchester, V Art Center Shanghai, and Kiasma Helsinki.
Working across different disciplines and media, my practice focuses on how meaning and perception are generated and altered through interactions with technology and external stimuli. My current research investigates the influence of information systems and how they are embedded within our cognitive processes. My practice attempts to render and engage these systems in a way that reimagines their output and modes of presentation and production. Recent work involves the construction of generative moving image platforms made with game engines that execute ongoing renderings of "real-time" or "live" material captured on the internet through custom algorithms. These platforms attempt to create fluctuating narratives by stripping content from its original context to potentially reveal variant pathologies, patterns, and associations that are normally obscured by the vast amounts of information inhabited within filtered interfaces on- and offline.
Prior to joining AVA, I was an art practice tutor at Goldsmiths University and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art in London. My teaching methods stem from my artistic practice and are based on a strong sense of experimentation and critical inquiry into the reading and construction of artwork and information. An interest in perception and cognition also informs my teaching by providing an underlying framework for the material presented. I encourage the conceptual and material bridging of disciplines, amalgamating technological, practical, and theoretical elements.
Exhibition Publication Award & Achievements