Jeff Crouse (born September 10, 1980 in
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
) is an American
artist and
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...
/creative technologist who works with live
data feed
Data feed is a mechanism for users to receive updated data from data sources. It is commonly used by real-time applications in point-to-point settings as well as on the World Wide Web. The latter is also called web feed. News feed is a popular for ...
s from the internet to make art works.
Background
Crouse's undergraduate study in Computer Science and Fiction Writing led to creating works that continued the history of
automatic writing
Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spir ...
through using computers, code, and dynamic sources on the internet
Interactive Frank for example, used sources on the internet to create dynamically generated audio programs reminiscent of public radio pioneer,
Joe Frank
Joe Frank (August 19, 1938 – January 15, 2018) was a French-born American writer, teacher, and radio performer best known for his often philosophical, humorous, surrealist, and sometimes absurd monologues and radio dramas he recorded often i ...
. Another example i
ChinASCIIa video game based on the life
Charles Bukowski
Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...
.
In order to facilitate his projects, Jeff Crouse develope
Switchboarda library for
Processing
Processing is a free graphical library and integrated development environment (IDE) built for the electronic arts, new media art, and visual design communities with the purpose of teaching non-programmers the fundamentals of computer programming ...
. Switchboard allows "artists and designers to easily use a variety of live data sources for digital art".
After completing a Master of Science degree in Information Design and Technology at
Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...
in 2006, Crouse began a Production Fellowship at
Eyebeam in 2006 and in 2007 he became a Senior Fellow.
He is on the Add-Art advisory committee.
Notable works
* Invisible Threads (aka Double Happiness Jeans or Double Happiness Manufacturing) - a collaboration with
Stephanie Rothenberg. Double Happiness is a
sweatshop
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...
manufacturing plant in
Second Life
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
to build jeans based on orders made in real life. The jeans are designed and assembled in the factory and then delivered back into real life by being printed on fabric via a large format printer. The result is a tangible, wearable (however impractical) pair of pants. The project began in 2007 and was shown at the 2008
Sundance Film Festival in the New Frontiers exhibition.
Awards
* 2022
Gerald Loeb Award for Personal Finance and Personal Service
References
External links
Jeff CrouseOfficial Website
Art Forumreview of Invisible Threads (requires login)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crouse, Jeff
1980 births
Living people
American digital artists
Artists from New York (state)
Georgia Tech alumni
Artists from Baltimore
Gerald Loeb Award winners for Personal Finance