Jason Salavon (born 1970) is an American

contemporary artist Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic ...

. He is noted for his use of custom computer software to manipulate and reconfigure preexisting media and data to create new visual works of

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwor ...

Early life

The son of an artist, Jason Salavon was born in 1970 in Indianapolis,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

and raised in Fort Worth,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

(Hill 2004). He earned his BA in 1993 from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...

and his MFA in 1997 from

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a Private university, private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew ...

. During and after school, Salavon worked as an artist and programmer in the video game industry. After he earned his MFA, he also designed and taught courses as an instructor at

. Salavon currently lives in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

, where he is a studio artist and an associate professor at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

Work

Salavon is noted for his use of custom computer software to manipulate and reconfigure media and data to create new visual works of art. A significant body of Salavon's work involves two general means of manipulating preexisting media to create works of art: first, by overlaying images (such as multiple photographs) and averaging the result to create visual amalgamations and, second, by distributing processed media (such as individual frames of a movie) side by side or in other configurations. An example of the first means is Salavon's 2004 suite of works, ''100 Special Moments'', which consists of images based on the average of groups of 100 unique commemorative photographs culled from the Internet. An example of the second method of production is his 2000 work, ''The Top Grossing Film of All Time, 1 x 1'', which is a static image showing all of the frames of the movie ''Titanic'' reduced to the average color most representative of each frame. Salavon employed a similar method in his 2003 series ''Emblem'', reducing films such as Stanley Kubrick's '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' to a set of concentric rings of color representing each frame of the film. A third part of Salavon's work involves the recomposition of statistical data into visual images. For example, in the 2001 works ''Shoes, Domestic Production, 1960-1998'', Salavon organized and transformed a data set concerning the show industry into "psychedelic constellations" bursting with color. A more recent example is Salavon's 2006 work, ''American Varietal'', a commission to transform census data into site-specific art for the new headquarters of the

US Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...

in Suitland, Maryland. Salvon's public installation ''American Varietal'' is installed at the

in Suitland, Maryland. At one point in time, the

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

search results for the term "Playboy" placed Salavon's website in a higher position than Playboy's own website. This was likely the result of extensive

blogosphere The blogosphere is made up of all blogs and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected community (or as a collection of connected communities) or as a social networking service in which everyday authors can pu ...

discussion about and linking to Salavon's website for his works ''Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades'', amalgamations showing the decade-by-decade evolution of the "average" Playboy centerfold from the 1960s to the 1990s. In 2018 Salavon's work ''Everything All at Once(Part III)'' was displayed in the Chicago New Media 1973-1992 exhibition, curated by jonCates.

Collections

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York * National Portrait Gallery, Washington *the

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

, New York

References

* Irvine, Karen.
Jason Salavon
,

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Projec ...

(Midwest Photographers Project Collection). Retrieved on March 16, 2007. *
Jason Salavon
,

(Permanent Collection). Retrieved on March 16, 2007. *Picard, Caroline (November 29, 2018).
'Chicago New Media 1973-1992' pays tribute to the city's contribution to video games and digital art
. Chicago Reader. Retrieved September 25, 2019. *Cates, Jon (2018). ''Chicago New Media, 1973-1992.'' Illinois, United States: University of Illinois. p. 9. .

External links

Official web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Salavon, Jason Living people American contemporary artists Digital artists School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni 1970 births

Early life

Work

Collections

References

Further reading

External links