| Leonardo/ISASTwith Arizona State University

Bruce Wands

Chair Emeritusat SVA
Verona,
United States
Focus area: Computer Music, Electroacoustic Music, Sonification

Bruce Wands has been working in digital media and music for more than forty years as an artist, writer, musician, educator and curator. His digital art, writing, music and photography explore the relationship between contemporary art, mathematics, new forms of narrative and the creation of sound art and contemporary American folk art. His books are Art of the Digital Age, published by Thames & Hudson in 2006 and Digital Creativity by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 2002. Bruce was the first musician to give a live performance over ISDN lines on the Internet in 1992. He was interviewed on Yale University Radio and has lectured, performed, and exhibited his creative work in the United States and internationally in Europe, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Xian, Dalian and Beijing, China. Selected venues include Columbia University; Oxford University; EVA London Conference; FMX Conference, Germany; 1st International Conference on Animation Education, Tsinghua University, 1st Beijing International New Media Arts Exhibition, Art in the Digital Era Conference and Exhibition, China; Decoding the Digital Conference, Victoria and Albert Museum, Computer Art & Technocultures Symposium, British Computer Arts Society, Computers and the History of Art keynote, 2006, ACM Creativity & Cognition Conference and Exhibition, London; 4th International Conference on the Arts in Society, Venice, Italy; Electronics Alive III, IV, V & VII; College Art Association; SIGGRAPH and the 2003 Art Gallery and Traveling Art Show; SVA Chelsea and Flatiron galleries, New York. Time Out New York named Bruce as one of the “99 People to Watch in 1999.” He is Chair Emeritus of the MFA Computer Arts Department, Founder of the BFA Computer Art Department and the Director of Computer Education at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He taught digital art for thirty-three years in the graduate, undergraduate, and continuing education programs. Graduates of the MFA Computer Arts department have been awarded with nine Student Academy Awards and the department was ranked 1st in the “Best Animation Schools on the East Coast and 3rd in the United States” by the Animation Career Review in 2018 and 6th in the United States in Time-Based Media/New Media by US News & World Report in 2016. ImagineFX in the UK named SVA as “One of the Top Ten Digital Arts Schools in the World.” He was a Curator (1993-1995) and Director (1998-2017) with the New York Digital Salon, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2013 (www.nydigitalsalon.org). Bruce has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA UK). As an educational consultant, his clients have included the New York State Department of Education, Tsinghua University, Hong Kong Arts Centre, University of the Arts, Long Island University and Nanyang Technological University. Bruce has a B.A. with honors from Lafayette College and an M.S. from Syracuse University, where he studied computer art, television, radio and film. His websites are brucewands.com and artofthedigitalage.com.

Journal Articles:
Special Section: Pioneers and Pathbreakers

The New York Digital Salon: A Memoir

April 2022
Director's Statement

The New York Digital Salon 2000: A Coming of Age

October 2000
Director's Statement

2001: A Digital Art Odyssey

October 2001

Director's Statement (A Moment in Time)

October 2002

Digital Salon Chair's Statement Digital Art: A Glass Bead Game?

October 1999
Articles

The Contemporary Becomes Digital

August 2011