Joel Swanson

Joel Swanson lives and works in Denver. He is Assistant Professor in the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado Boulder where he teaches courses on typography, computational linguistics, creative coding, and media theory. Swanson received his MFA in Computing in the Arts at the University of California San Diego. His artwork has been exhibited at institutions such as the Broad Museum in East Lansing, Michigan, The Power Plant in Toronto, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the North Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, and MCA Denver. In 2017, he exhibited work in Personal Structures, an official satellite show of the 57th Venice Biennale.

Swanson’s work examines the relationship between language and technology. His practice explores the forms, materials, and technologies that give shape and power to words. Working in a broad range of media and contexts, from web-based interactive works to large-scale public sculpture, he reveals the idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies inherent to language. With his work, he renders familiar structures, like pronouns, ampersands, and spacebars, unfamiliar.