Jeffrey Shaw (born 1944 in Melbourne) is a visual artist known for being a leading figure in new media art. In a prolific career of widely exhibited and critically acclaimed work, he has pioneered the creative use of digital media technologies in the fields of expanded cinema, interactive art, virtual, augmented and mixed reality, immersive visualization environments, navigable cinematic systems and interactive narrative.[1] Shaw was co-designer of Algie the inflatable pig, which was photographed above Battersea Power Station for the 1977 Pink Floyd album, Animals.[2]
The son of Polish immigrants, Shaw was born in 1944 in Melbourne[5] and studied at Melbourne High School and the University of Melbourne. Shaw left Australia in 1965 after two years of university studies in architecture and art history, and for the next 25 years, he resided in Milan, London and Amsterdam. Shaw studied sculpture at Brera Academy, Milan and Central Saint Martins, London.[6]
Shaw was a founding member of Artist Placement Group in London (1966–1989) and of the Eventstructure Research Group in Amsterdam (1969–1979). On Heinrich Klotz’s invitation, he moved to Germany in 1991 to take the position of the founding director of the ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe. For the next 11 years, he initiated and led a seminal artistic research, production and exhibition program at the ZKM that included residencies and the creation of new works by many of the most notable media artists of his time. He also curated ground breaking new media art exhibitions such as Bitte berühren,[7] Newfoundland,[8] Future Cinema[9] and the ArtIntAct series of digital publications.[10] In 1995, Shaw was appointed Professor of Media Art at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG), Germany.
Shaw was awarded an Australian Research CouncilFederation Fellowship in 2003, and returned to Australia to co-found and direct the UNSW iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research in Sydney. At iCinema he led a research program in immersive interactive post-narrative systems, which produced pioneering artistic and research works such as T Visionarium shown at the Biennial of Seville in 2008.
In 2009 Shaw joined the City University of Hong Kong as Chair Professor of Media Art and until 2015 he was also Dean of the School of Creative Media. In 2010, together with Professor Sarah Kenderdine, he established the CityU Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE) at the Hong Kong Science Park, a next-generation platform for interdisciplinary applications in digital cultural heritage that included Pure Land – Inside the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang shown at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Washington in 2012. Over the last years, this research trajectory includes projects relating to Chinese martial arts (with Mr. Hing Chao) and the Confucian Rites (with Professor Peng Lin and Mr. Johnson Chang).
2018 - Safeguarding the Community: An intangible Cultural Heritage New Media Exhibition (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine and Hing Chao), Hong Kong City Hall, Hong Kong, China.
2018 - Kung Fu Motion EPFL (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine and Hing Chao), ArtLab, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
2017 - Kung Fu Motion (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine and Hing Chao), Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts Festival, Immigration Museum, Melbourne, Australia.
2017 - Lingnan Hung Kuen Across the Century: Kung Fu Narratives in Cinema and Community (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine and Hing Chao), Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong, China; CityU Exhibition Gallery, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
2017 - Sincerely Yours: Personal Letters from Tsinghua Scholars (co-curated with Du Pengfei, Fan Baolong and Isabelle Frank), CityU Exhibition Gallery, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
2017 - Giuseppe Castiglione – Lang Shining New Media Art Exhibition (co-curated with Hsieh Chun-ko, Hwang Wang-hwa and Kuo Chen-wo), Magong Jinguitou Fortress Cultural Park, Penghu, Taiwan.
2016 - 300 Years of Hakka Kungfu (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine and Hing Chao), Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Hong Kong, China; Academic 3, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
2016 - POST PiXEL.: Animamix Biennale 2015-16, Chief Curator, CMC Gallery, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, City University of Hong Kong; MoCA Shanghai.
2016 - Rebuilding the Tong-an Ships New Media Art Exhibition (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine), Songshan Feng-Tian Temple, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
2016 - Giuseppe Castiglione – Lang Shining New Media Art Exhibition (co-curated with Hsieh Chun-ko, Hwang Wang-hwa and Kuo Chen-wo), Opera di Santa Croce, Florence, Italy; Academic 3, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
2016 - Trans>Formations, Hong Kong - Macau Visual Art Biennale, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Beijing 2016, Silk Road International Convention and Expo Center, Dunhuang 2016, Henan Art Museum, Zhengzhou 2016.
2015 - Giuseppe Castiglione – Lang Shining New Media Art Exhibition (co-curated with Hsieh Chun-ko, Hwang Wang-hwa and Kuo Chen-wo), National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
2015 - Rebuilding the Tong-an Ships New Media Art Exhibition (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine), Academic 3, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
2014 – Fleeting Light (co-curated with Maurice Benayoun) 4th Large Scale Interactive Media Art Exhibition, Hong Kong.
2012 - PLACE - Hampi Museum (co-curated with Sarah Kenderdine), Kaladham, Vidyanagara Museum, Karnataka, India.
2012 - Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre Grand Opening Festival, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
1992 – Bitte berühren, Drei Projekte, Unterkirche der Ev. Stadtkirche Karlsruhe am Marktplatz, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Selected works
Recombinatorial Poetry Wheel, 2018 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Edwin Nadason Thumboo), DIA-LOGOS: Ramon Llull & the Ars Combinatoria, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Thinking Machines: Ramon Llull & the Ars Combinatoria, ArtLab, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Kung Fu Visualization, 2016 (with Sarah Kenderdine), 300 Years of Hakka Kung Fu, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, Hong Kong, China
IN_SIDE VIEW, 2016 (with Sarah Kenderdine), DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA, Angewandte Innovation Laboratory, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Look Up Mumbai, 2015 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Bernd Lintermann), Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, India
mArchive, 2014 (with Sarah Kenderdine, David Chesworth (sound), Dennis Del Favero and Tim Hart), Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Australia
Remaking the Confucian Rites, 2014 (with Sarah Kenderdine), Third International Symposium on Ritual Studies, China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China
Fall Again, Fall Better, 2012 (with Sinan Goo), 9th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China
Pure Land AR, 2012 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Leith Chan), Art HK 2012, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong, China
ECLOUD WWI, 2012 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Cédric Maridet), Europeana Awareness Day, Brussels, Belgium
Pure Land 360, 2012 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Cédric Maridet), Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
UNMAKEABLELOVE, 2008 (with Sarah Kenderdine and Ulf Langheinrich), eArts Festival: eLandscapes, Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, Shanghai, China
T_Visionarium II, 2006 (with Neil Brown, Dennis Del Favero, Matt McGinity, and Peter Weibel), Biennial of Seville 2008
PLACE – Hampi, 2006 (with Sarah Kenderdine, Paul Doornbusch and John Gollings), Lille 3000, Lille, France
Eavesdrop, 2004 (with David Pledger), Sydney Festival, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
Cupola, 2004 (with Bernd Lintermann), European Cultural Capital of Europe 2004, Eurolille, Lille, France
Web of Life, 2002 (with Torsten Belschner, Michael Gleich, Bernd Lintermann, Lawrence Wallen, and Manfred Wolff-Plottegg), Museum für Kommunikation, Frankfurt, Germany
PLACE - Ruhr, 2000, Vision Ruhr, Dortmund, Germany
conFiguring the CAVE, 1996 (with Agnes Hegedüs, Bernd Lintermann, and Leslie Stuck), NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan
PLACE – a user's manual, 1995, Neue Galerie Graz, Austria
Golden Calf, 1994, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
Virtual Museum, 1991, Das Belebte Bild, Art Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
Revolution, 1990 (with Tjebbe van Tijen), Imago, KunstRAI, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Imaginary Museum of Revolutions, 1988 (with Tjebbe van Tijen) Brucknerhaus, Linz, Austria
Legible City, 1989 (with Dirk Groeneveld), Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht, Netherlands
Heaven's Gate, 1987 (with Harry de Wit), Shaffy Theater, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Inventer la Terre, 1986, La Villette, Paris, France
Points of View, 1983, Mickery Theater, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, 1975 (Eventstructure Research Group) Genesis World Tour
Viewpoint, 1975 (Eventstructure Research Group) 6th Biennale de Paris, Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris, France
Waterwalk, 1969 (Eventstructure Research Group) Brighton Festival, Brighton, England
MovieMovie, 1967 (Eventstructure Research Group) 4th Experimental Film Festival, Knokke le Zoute, Belgium
Corpocinema, 1967 (Eventstructure Research Group) Sigma Projects, Museumplein, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Continuous Sound and Image Moments, 1966 (with Tjebbe van Tijen and Willem Breuker) Netherlands Film Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Representative recent publications
Kenderdine, S. & Shaw, J. (2017), ‘Archives in Motion: Motion as Meeting’, in Museum and Archive on the Move: Changing Cultural Institutions in the Digital Era, (eds) Grau, O., Coones, W., Rühse, V., De Gruyter, pp. 211–233
Shaw, J. (2016) ‘Collaborative Models for AVIE’, in Sanderson, E. (ed) Unfolding Space and Time, Jeffrey Shaw and Hu Jieming Twofold Exhibition, Shanghai, China Academy of Art Press, pp. 22–25 and 44-85
Kenderdine, S and Shaw, J (2014) ‘A Cultural Heritage Panorama: Trajectories in Embodied Museography’, in H Din and S Wu (eds), Digital Heritage and Culture – Strategy and Implementation, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co, pp. 197–218
Chan, L, Kenderdine, S and Shaw, J (2013) ‘Spatial User Interface for Experiencing Mogao Caves’, in Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Spatial User Interaction, New York: ACM, pp. 21–24.
Kenderdine, S.and Shaw, J. and Gremmler, T. (2012) ‘Cultural Data Sculpting: Omnidirectional Visualization for Cultural Datasets’, in FT Marchese and E Banissi (eds), Knowledge Visualization Currents: From Text to Art to Culture, London: Springer-Verlag, pp. 199–221
Shaw, J. and Kenderdine, S. (2012) ‘Making UNMAKEABLELOVE: The Relocation of Theatre’, in R Vanderbeeken, B de Backere, D Depestel and C Stalpaert (eds), Theater Topics: Bastard or Playmate? Adapting Theatre, Mutating Media and Contemporary Performing Arts, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 102–120.
Shaw, J., Kenderdine, S. and Coover, R., (2011) ‘Re-Place: The Embodiment of Virtual Space’, in T Bartscherer and R Coover (eds), Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts, Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, pp. 218–238.
Selected bibliography
Castelli, R., (Ed) Cinemas of the Future, Lille 2004 Capitale Europeenne de la Culture, 2004, pp. 50–53, 56–57, 78–79.
De Mèredieu, F., (Ed) Histoire de l'Art Moderne. Matérielle et immatérielle, Larrouse, Paris, 1994, pp. 303–305.
Dinkla, S., Pioniere interaktiver Kunst von 1970 bis heute: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 1997, pp. 97–146.
Druckery, T., Weibel, P. (Eds.) Net Condition, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001.
Duguet, A-M., Klotz, H., Weibel, P., Jeffrey Shaw – a user's manual. From Expanded Cinema to Virtual Reality, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 1997.
Evenstructure Research Group: Concepts for an Operational Art, in: Art and Artists, London, January 1969.
Grosenick, U., and Riemschneider, B., (Eds), Art at the Turn of the Millennium, Taschen Verlag, Cologne, 1999, pp. 462–465.
Hansen, M. B. N.,Framing the Digital Image: Jeffrey Shaw and the Embodied Aesthetics of New Media, in: New Philosophy for New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge 2004.
Gleich, M., Shaw, J., The Web of Life – Linking Art and Science, Aventis Foundation and ZKM Karlsruhe, 2004.
Oliver Grau: Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, MIT-Press, Cambridge 2003, pp 240–243.
Huhtamo, E., Jeffrey Shaw's EVE and the Panoramic Tradition, in: ICC InterCommunication, No. 14, Tokyo, Autumn 1995, pp. 138–139.
Kenderdine, S., Shaw. J., Del Favero, D. and Brown, Place-Hampi: Co-Evolutionary Narrative & Augmented Stereographic Panoramas, Vijayanagara, India in: New Heritage, New Media And Cultural Heritage, Kalay, Y. E., Kvan, T., and Affleck, J.,(Eds.) Routledge, Oxfordshire, 2008.
Manovich, L., The Language of New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2001, pp 226, 260–261, 282–285.
Margaret Morse, M., (Ed) Hardware, Software, Artware – Art Practice at the ZKM Institute for Visual Media, 1992–1997, ZKM Karlsruhe, 1997.
Paul, C., Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd. 2003.
Popper, F., Art of the Electronic Age, Thames & Hudson, 1997.
Popper, F., From Technological to Virtual Art, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007.
Rush, M., New Media in Late 20th-Century Art, London, New York, 1999, pp. 210–212.
Schwarz, H. P., Media Art History, Prestel-Verlag, Munich 1997.
Shaw, J., Movies after Film – The Digitally Expanded Cinema, in: New Screen Media. M. Rieser, M., and Zapp, A., (Eds) British Film Institute, London 2002.
Shaw, J: Der entkörperte und wiederverkörperte Leib (The Dis-Embodied Re-Embodied Body), in: Kunstforum. Die Zukunft des Körpers I, 1996, pp132.
Shaw, J., Weibel, P., Future Cinema. The Cinematic Imaginary after Film, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2003.
Thomson, C. W.m, Visionary Architecture. From Babylon to Virtual Reality, Prestel, München/New York, 1994.
Topham, S., Blow Up. Inflatable Art, Architecture and Design. Prestel, Munich, 2002 pp. 86–90.
Wilson, S., Information Arts. Intersections of Art, Science, and Technology, MIT Press,Cambridge, 2002, pp. 709–712, 760–761.
^Book Review: Jeffrey Shaw: A Users Manual">
Penny, Simon; Fernandez, Maria (1 December 1998). "Book Review: Jeffrey Shaw: A Users Manual". Sculpture. New Jersey: Johannah Hutchison. Retrieved 25 April 2024.
^Duguet, Anne-Marie[in French] (1997). "Jeffrey Shaw: From Expanded Cinema to Virtual Reality". Jeffrey Shaw: a user's manual, from expanded cinema to virtual reality. Ostfildern: Cantz. p. 53. ISBN9783893228829.
^"Shaw". City University of Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
