Lecturer

Jenn Karson is an interdisciplinary artist, producer, curator, and educator. Her current work is focused on intermedia artist-made datasets.
At the University of Vermont, she is the director of the UVM Fablab and on the School of the Arts faculty. She founded the UVM Art and Artificial Intelligence Research Group, an initiative funded through National Science Foundation projects and UVM grants.

Karson received an MFA in Design and Technology with honors from the San Francisco Art Institute and a BA in Political and Environmental Sciences at the University of Vermont.

 

 

Research and/or Creative Works

Selected Exhibitions, Visiting Artist Talks and Curated Programs

  • Curator, Situated Language: Local Constructions of Time, Space, and Action, Colburn Gallery, March 31 - April 6, 202
  • Creative AI Symposium, Organizing Committee, Hula Lakeside, Burlington, VT, April 15, 2023.
  • #OwnYourDataset artist talk, Panel: Embodiment and Datafication, New Media Caucus of the College Arts Association, Blacksburg, VA, September 30, 2022.
  • Liquid Architectures and Leaky Territories, Francis Colburn Gallery, Williams Hall, University of Vermont. March 15 – 25, 2022.Link to story.
  • Roxham Road, Francis Colburn Gallery, Williams Hall, UVM, Burlington, Vermont. Collaboration with Photographer Bill McDowell, October, 2022.
  • Novak, Alison, An Artist Finds Inspiration in Leaves Chomped by Spongy Moth Caterpillars, Seven Days Newspaper, June 15, 2022.
  • Co-Created: The Artist in the Age of Intelligent Machines, Burlington City Arts Gallery, Burlington, VT, February 10 – May 6, 2023.
  • Appraising Your Research As Data: Managing, Visualizing, and Preserving Your Scholarship, sponsored by Art Libraries Society of North America, The 110th  College Arts Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL/virtual, 2022.
  •  Repatriation/Restitution/Reparation: African Art at the Fleming Museum, Artist Workshop: Using Artificial Intelligence to Imagine Alternate Pasts, Presents & Futures, Workshop with Minne Atairu, Fleming Museum of Art, UVM, Burlington, VT. 2021
  • SuperComputing21, Panelist, Northeast and CAREERS Cyberteams: Supporting Research at Small and Mid-Sized Institutions with Student Research Computing Facilitators. 2021
  • Aquela Que Eu Queria Ser (The One I Wanted to Be), selected for Los Angeles International Film Festival Indie Short Fest (2001), ARFF Berlin (2001, Festival Genders and Performances (2001), Diorama International Film Festival, nukhufest (2022).
  • Alife2020. New Frontiers in AI: What Alife can offer AI. Montréal, Canada/virtual. 2020
  • Small File Media Festival. School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada/virtual. 2020.
  • Virtual Visiting Artist Talk and Generative Art Performance; Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT/virtual; December 17, 2020.
  • Curator, Behind the Schemes: When Helen of Troy Came to UVM. Fleming Museum or Art, UVM, Burlington, VT. 2019
  • lluminated Forest, Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, VT. 2018.
  • Talk, Sub Ambient Sound Lab, Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium, Toronto, CA. 2017.
  • Staring Back: The Creation and Legacy of Picasso’s Desmoiselles d’Avignon, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, UVM, Burlington VT. 2015.
  • Break it! Build It! Burlington City Arts Center, Burlington, VT. 2014.
  • User Required, Burlington City Arts Center, Burlington, VT. 2013.
  • Audible Observations, SOMArts, Ethnographic Terminalia, San Francisco, CA. 2012.
  • Going to Waterbury, An Asylum Project, Vermont State Hospital, Waterbury, VT. 2012.
  • Ethnographic Terminalia New Orleans, Du Mois Gallery, New Orleans, LA. 2010.
  • Art Incurable, Echo Science Center, Burlington, VT and La Bellevilloise, Paris, France. 2010.

Awards and Recognition

Recent Awards

NSF Track-2 (EPSCoR) Artificial Intelligence Enabled Advanced Manufacturing, 2022.

Damaged Leaf Dataset, Small Grant Research Award, College of Arts and Sciences, UVM, Burlington, VT. December 2021.

Writing and Research Across the Curriculum In An Age Of Disinformation, Faculty Resource Network Seminar, New York University, NY, NY/virtual. June 7-11. 2021

UVM Art + Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Research Group Funding from Northeast Cyberteam, Funding from the National Science foundation (NSF) under award No. OAC-1659377. Computations were performed on the Vermont Advanced Computing Core supported in part by NSF award No. OAC-1827314.

Lattie Coor Collaborative Fellowship, UVM Humanities Center. Funding for collaborative intermedia project with choreographer and dancer Paula Higa. 2020.

 

Associations and Affiliations

  • College Arts Association
  • Peer Reviewer. Leonardo journal, MIT Press.
  • Leonardo, The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology.

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Design and Technology, Artificial Intelligence

Education

  • B.A. University of Vermont, Political Science
  • M.F.A. San Francisco Art Institute, Design + Technology

Contact

Office Location:

UVM FabLab Votey 242 and 227

Courses Taught

  • ARTS 146/CIS 146 Digital Fabrication
  • ARTS 145 Graphic Design
  • Special Topics Courses in Digital Fabrication and Intermedia
  • ARTS 194/294 Teaching Assistantship
  • ARTS 198 Undergraduate Research
  • ARTS 244 Advanced Digital Art Studies
  • ARTS 144 Digital Art Studies