Bio
Michael Shiloh (Israel, USA) is an artist, engineer, and educator who creates electro-mechanical and conceptual work involving motion, mechanisms, sound, and robots, that often require audience participation. Michael likes to incorporate discarded or salvaged mechanisms in his projects.
Michael is interested in exploring our relationships with technology (Human-Robot Interaction; robot rights; maintainability; unintended uses of technology; who is included/excluded from using/designing/repairing technology); our relationships with each other around technology; initiating projects the outcomes of which he doesn't know; relational aesthetics/system art. Michael likes building things, especially using discarded or salvaged mechanisms.
Michael has exhibited, spoken, or taught at the Exploratorium (San Francisco), Imperial College (London), MIT (Boston), Bloomfield Science Museum (Jerusalem), TsingHua University (Beijing), Paper Crane Labs (Bangalore), The Project Space (Abu Dhabi), many galleries in San Francisco, and at Maker Faires in San Francisco, New York, Jerusalem, Shenzhen and Chengdu (China); and at many conferences worldwide. Michael collaborates with machine performance group Survival Research Labs and with them has performed across the USA as well as in Tokyo and Amsterdam.
Michael is currently professor of Interactive Media at New York University Abu Dhabi, where he challenges students to work creatively and critically with electronics, programming, mechanisms, and physical materials.
Michael is the co-author, along with Massimo Banzi, of the third and fourth editions of "Getting Started with Arduino"
Artist Statement
Short form
Michael creates situations in which participants are encouraged to explores their relationship to technology by becoming part of the artmaking process. Michael uses deconstructed familiar objects and materials, and simple construction techniques, encouraging an "I could make that" attitude.
Read my full artist statement here