Golan Levin

Golan Levin, born in 1972, is a Pittsburgh-based new media artist, composer, performer, and engineer known for his innovative exploration of the expressive potential of computation. His work spans software art, interactive installations, and performance, focusing on the design of systems that merge image and sound while exploring human-machine interaction, interactivity, and the dynamics of nonverbal communication. Levin’s projects often highlight the relationship between technology and human creativity, using playful, provocative, and thought-provoking approaches.

Levin holds a Bachelor of Science in Art and Design with a minor in Music Theory from MIT and a Master of Science in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab’s Aesthetics and Computation Group. After working as an interaction designer and research scientist at Interval Research Corporation, he became Professor of Electronic Time-Based Art at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also directs the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry and holds courtesy appointments in Computer Science and Design.

Among his most notable works are Dialtones: A Telesymphony (2001), an audience-performed concert using mobile phones; The Secret Lives of Numbers (2002) and The Dumpster (2006), which visualize vast online communication data; and collaborative projects like Re:MARK (2002) and The Manual Input Sessions (2004), blending augmented reality and real-time gesture visualization. His recent works incorporate robotics and machine vision to examine gaze as a mode of human-machine interaction.

Levin’s art has been widely exhibited at prestigious venues including the Whitney Biennial, the New Museum in New York, Ars Electronica in Austria, the ZKM in Germany, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His work is held in major collections such as MoMA, Tate London, and the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum. He has received numerous grants and awards, including an Award of Distinction from Prix Ars Electronica. Levin co-authored Code as Creative Medium (MIT Press, 2021), a key text for creative coding education.  Levin has said that art serves “to make our suffering seem like it is possibly worth something.” His creative practice reflects this philosophy, inviting audiences to confront and reframe their experiences through immersive and thought-provoking encounters.