Contact
Please email me at gregniemeyer@gmail.com or reach me via instagram @gregniemeyer.
I look closely, give talks, create and exhibit data art. At UC Berkeley, I am a professor for media innovation in the Department of Art Practice. My home base is in Richmond, California.
Time permitting, I consult on media innovation, game design and data manifestations.
Biography
Greg Niemeyer is a data artist and Professor of Media Innovation in the Department of Art Practice at UC Berkeley. He's the former director and co-founder of the Berkeley Center for New Media. He started out with studies in Classics and Photography in Switzerland and switched to new media when he moved to the Bay Area in 1992.
He received his MFA from Stanford University in New Genres in 1997. Since childhood, Niemeyer was fascinated with making mirrors, and he still makes mirrors: media which allow us to see things from a new point of view, a point of view that is not our own, revealing both things we want to see and things we don't want to see. We need such mirrors, he maintains, to make better decisions about our lives in context with other humans and with the fragile environments we depend on.
Niemeyer exhibited around the world at ZKM, SFMOMA, San Jose, Amsterdam, Cairo, Zurich, New York and received grants from the MacArthur Foundation, NEA, Intel, Pro Helvetia and many others. Notable works include icecorwalk.org, Tsar Bell, Oxygen Flute, Network Paradox, Quantopia and the most recent Water Panoramas.
Niemeyer's work is data-driven: Large datasets and data streams are raw materials for visual and sonic experiences. They act as mirrors, reflecting to us what we don't see about our essential resources (air, water, care) from novel points of view. These patterns hold the hope that we can learn something new about what is to come and that we can evolve from the impossible present to more possible futures.
Selected projects include Gravity (Cooper Union, NYC, 1997), PING (SFMOMA, 2001), Oxygen Flute (SJMA, 2002), Ping 2.0 (Paris, La Villette Numérique, 2004), Organum Playtest (BAMPFA 2005), Good Morning Flowers (SFIFF 2006, Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt, 2006), Maldives Pavillion (Venice Biennale, 2013), gnosisong (CCD Mexico City, 2015), //supraliminal (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2017), Sonic Web (ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2018) blackcloud.org, sevenairs.org, polartide.org, gifcollider.com, tsarbell.com and radioflux.org.
Education
1997 MFA, Stanford University, Department of Art and Art History, specialized in New Genres
1990 Professional Degree (BFA equivalent) in Photography, Ecole d’Arts Appliqués, Vevey, CH
1986 Matura in Classics, Kantonsschule Rämibühl, Zürich, Switzerland
Exhibits
2021 Flows to Bay, Water Webinar, Ghent University
2020 SweetWire, Center for Long Term Cybersecurity, Berkeley
2019 Quantopia, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
2019 Network Paradox, Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco
2018 Rain Bell, Databeers, Malaga, Spain
2018 Cave Bell, Riddoch Museum, Mount Gambier, South Australia
2017 Open Codes, Sonic Web Installation at Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe
2017 SOHOsonus, Concert at Berkeley Art Museum, BAMPFA Full Concert Series
2017 supraliminal, installation at Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe, Germany
2016 gifCollider, Berkeley Art Museum, first art installation on public screen.
2016 Tsar Bell and 0.9 Subsonic Traveling Installation including Bergen Assembly, Norway
2015 GNOSISONG, collaboration with Chris Chafe, Centro de Cultura Digital, Mexico City
2015 Within 2, collaboration with Tarek Atoui, Berkeley Art Museum
2015 Natural Frequencies, Installation and Concert in Honor of Sather Tower (02/03/15)
2014 Polartide 2.0, Stanford University, Hoover Tower (Concert with Tiffany Ng, Carillonist)
2014 Polartide (Spillover), Sather Tower, UC Berkeley (Concert with Tiffany Ng, Carillonist)
2014 Polartide (Gulf), Bok Tower, Lake Wales, Florida (Concert with Tiffany Ng, Carillonist)
2013 Polartide 2.0, Sather Tower, UC Berkeley(Concert with Tiffany Ng, Carillonist)
2013 Polartide, Venice Biennale, Maldives Pavillion (Installation)
2012 Equimano, Ecce Homo Ludens Exhibit, Musee du Jeu, La Tour de Peilz
2011 Tomato Quintet 3.0., National Art Museum of China: Translife Triennial of New Media
2010 Tomato Quintet, San Jose, SJ01 Exhibit
2009 The End of Winter, Museum of California Art, Pasadena, CA, Jan 21 to April 1, 2009
2009 Scalable Relations, Beall Center for New Media, Irvine, CA, Jan 9 to March 14, 2009
2008 Reset/Play, Arthouse at the Jones Center, Austin TX, September 6 to November 2
2008 Black Cloud Citizen Science League, Machine Project Gallery, Los Angeles,
2007 Tomato Quintet, Machine Project Gallery, Los Angeles, August 22 to September 1, 2007
2007 Return to Balance, Falaki Gallery, May 1 to May 10, 2007, Cairo, Egypt
2006 Bounce // San Jose, ISEA ZeroOne Festival 2006: August 7-13, San Jose, CA
2006 Good Morning Flowers: Flaherty Film Seminar, Vassar College, NY
2006 Good Morning Flowers, Version 25: Townhouse Gallery, Cairo, Egypt
2006 Organum Playtest Version 41: Swiss Embassy, Cairo, Egypt
2006 Away from the New, Version 20: SF International Film Festival, Pocket Cinema Show
2005 Organum Playtest: Banff Center, Canada: The Art formerly known as New Media
2005 Organum Playtest: ResFest New York, ResFest San Francisco
2005 Organum Playtest: Vancouver, New Horizons Game Exhibit, DIGRA 2005
2005 Organum Playtest: San Francisco, New Langton Arts
2004 La Villette Numérique. Paris, France: Ping 2.0 Antidata
2003 ETH World Center, Zurich, Switzerland: Organum Screening
2003 Austin Museum of Digital Art, Austin, Texas: Organum Guided Tour
2003 Townsend Center, UC Berkley: Organum Film Stills
2003 Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley: Organum Screening
2002 New Langton Arts, Annual Benefit Group Show
2002 Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology: Oxygen Flute
2001 San Jose Museum of Art: Oxygen Flute, with Chris Chafe
2001 San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 010101: PING, with Chris Chafe
2000 Cantor Art Center and artmuseum.net: Refresh: The Art of the Screensaver
1999 Xerox PARC Gallery, Palo Alto, Flash Language Cards
1999 Cantor Art Center: Fly Through the Human Body
1998 New Langton Arts, SPEED, Group Show
1997 LACE, Los Angeles Annual Benefit Group Show
1997 ArtExpo, Los Angeles: Landscape with Campsite, Commissioned Installation
1997 Triton Museum, Santa Clara: California Photography, Group Show
1997 Stanford University, Art Gallery: MFA Exhibit, Group Show
1997 Cooper Union, New York: TECHNOSEDUCTION, Group Show
1997 Arizona State University, Memorial Union: Credit History, Solo Show
1996 Institute for Contemporary Art, San Jose: Location, Location
1996 Palo Alto Cultural Center, Radius Award Group Show
A link to a downloadable bio is here.