Perry Hoberman (born 1954), is an installation artist who has worked extensively with machines and media. His career has included stints with Laurie Anderson and the USC Interactive Media Division.
He has taught at the Cooper Union School of Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the graduate Computer Art Department in the school of Visual Arts in New York. He is currently an Associate Research Professor in the Interactive Media Division at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, as well as a visiting artist at the California Institute of the Arts.
His work is included in the 2004 exhibition Open House: Working In Brooklyn.
Perry Hoberman: Suspensions / Postmasters Gallery, New York
His work
Hoberman work focuses on the interactive nature of people and technology. Bar Code Hotel and Systems Maintenance are two exhibitions that demonstrate this aspect.
Bar Code Hotel
Bar Code Hotel recycles the ubiquitous symbols found on every consumer product to create a multi-user interface to an unruly virtual environment. The installation makes use of a number of strategies to create a casual, social, multi-person interface. The public simultaneously influences and interacts with computer-generated objects in an oversized three-dimensional projection, scanning and transmitting printed bar code information instantaneously into the computer system. The objects, each corresponding to a different user, exist as semi-autonomous agents that are only partially under the control of their human collaborators.
Systems Maintenance
Systems Maintenance consists of three versions of a furnished room. An ensemble of life-sized furniture occupies a large circular platform on the floor, a virtual room is displayed on a computer monitor, and a 1/8 size physical scale model of the room is presented on a small pedestal. Each version is imaged by a camera (either video or virtual), and the three resulting images are combined into a single large-scale video projection. The camera position, height, angle and field of view are matched between the three cameras. By moving the furniture and camera viewpoints for each of the three rooms, visitors can match or mismatch the components of each of the rooms as they appear in the projected image.
Education
Hoberman started at the Pennsylvania Academy of Art in Philadelphia in 1972, and earned his bachelor's degree from Bennington College in Bennington, VT (1974–77). In 1978, he participated in an independent study program at Whitney Museum in New York.
Awards
His installation "Timetable" was awarded the Grand Prix at the ICC Biennale '99 in Tokyo, and "Systems Maintenance" won a 1999 Prix Ars Electronica Award of Distinction. "Unexpected Obstacles", a retrospective survey of his work, was exhibited during summer 1998 at the ZKM Mediamuseum in Karlsruhe, Germany, and before that at Gallery Otso in Espoo, Finland.
Hoberman is currently represented by Postmasters Gallery in New York. In 2002 he was both a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellow.
Solo Exhibitions
The following is a list of solo exhibitions by Hoberman:
Symptomatic - 2001 - National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford
Cathartic User Interface - 2000 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Timetable - 2000 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Faraday’s Garden - 1999 - Kingston-Upon-Hull, New York
Systems Maintenance and "Faraday's Garden - 1998 - Cornerhouse Gallery, Manchester, New York
Lightpools or El Bal del Fanalet - 1998 - Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain
Unexpected Obstacles - 1998 - Karlsruhe, Germany
Sorry We're Open - 1998 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Faraday's Islands - 1995 - Boston University, Massachusetts
Bar Code Hotel - 1994 - Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada
Zombies, Has-Beens & Excess Baggage - 1992 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Faraday's Garden - 1991 - Museum of Contemporary Art, Dayton, Ohio
Corporate Entities - 1998 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Lightleakers - 1986 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Dead Space/Living Rooms" - 1985 Capp Street Project, San Francisco
Works in 3D (Stereoshadows) - 1985 Postmasters Gallery, New York
Inside Out - 1984 - Galerie Pon, Zurich, Switzerland
Out of the Picture - 1983 - Hallwalls, Buffalo, New York
Group Exhibitions
The following are list of group exhibitions by Hoberman:
Vision Ruhr - 2000 - Dortmund, Germany
Alien Intelligence - 2000 - Helsinki, Finland
Microwave Festival 2000 - 2000 - Hong Kong
Cyber - 1999 - Lisbon, Portugal
Techne - 1999 - Milan, Italy
Interaction - 1999 - NTT InterCommunication Center, Tokyo, Japan
Cyberarts 99 - 1999 - Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
Beyond Technology - 1999 - Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York
European Media Art Festival - 1999 - Osnabruck, Germany
Perspective - 1999 - C3, Muscarnok, Budapest
The Art of the Accident - 1998 - DEAF98, Rotterdam
Interpreting - 1998 - Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn
The Hole - 1998 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Electra - 1996 - Henie-Onstad Art Centre, Oslo, Norway
Le laboratoire - 1996 - Saint-Denis, France
Password: Ferdydurke - 1996 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
Constriction - 1996 - Pierogi 2000, Brooklyn
Can You Digit - 1996 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
The Crest Hardware Show - 1996 - Brooklyn, New York
Neo-Kinetics: Postmodern Techne - 1996 - Eighth Floor Gallery, New York
DEAF 95 - 1995 - Dutch Electronic Art Festival, Rotterdam
Tech Bash - 1995 - Blasthaus Gallery, San Francisco
Arc Gallery - 1995 - International Media Festival, Los Angeles
Cyber Art - 1994 - Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria
Simply Made in America - 1994 - Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati
Sound and Motion - 1994 - Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery, North Carolina
Resurrections: Objects with New Souls - 1994 - William Benton Museum, Hartford, Connecticut
Benefit Exhibition - 1994 - Capp Street Project, San Francisco
Machine Culture - 1993 - Anaheim, California
Simply Made in America - 1993 - Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut
Images du Futur 93 - 1993 - Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Perspectives, Proximities, Perceptions - 1993 - Montage 93, Rochester, New York
In Praise of Folly - 1992 - John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin
Technorama - 1992 - Barbara Toll Gallery, New York
Art Show - 1992 - Chicago, Illinois
The Living Room - 1991 - San Francisco, California
Tweeking the Human - 1991 - Brand Name Damages, Brooklyn, New York
Waterfront Show - 1991 - Minor Injury, Brooklyn, New York
Postmasters Gallery - 1991 - New York
Springworks - 1989 - New York Hall of Science
Signals - 1989 - Queensborough Community College, Queens, New York
Poetic Justice - 1988 - Ward-Nasse Gallery, New York
Art on the Beac2h - 1987 - Creative Time, Long Island City, New York
Art in the Dark - 1987 - City Without Walls, Newark, New Jersey
The Fairy Tale - 1986 - Artists Space, New York
CinemaObject - 1986 - The Kitchen at City Gallery, New York
Mythologies - 1986 - Diane Brown Gallery, New York
Brave New World/New Generation - 1986 - Denmark & Sweden
Paintings/Objects - 1986 - Postmasters Gallery, New York
TV Generations - 1986 - Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California
Between Science & Fiction - 1985 - São Paulo Biennial, Brazil
Modern Machines - 1985 - Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, New York
Biennial Exhibition - 1985 - Whitney Museum, New York
Found Language - 1984 - Franklin Furnace, New York
Science and Prophecy - 1984 - White Columns, New York
Dark Rooms - 1983 - Artists Space, New York
Constructed Color - 1982 - Hayden Gallery, MIT, Boston, Massachusetts
Teaching
The following are teaching position held by Hoberman:
Instructor, MFA Photography - (1999-00) School of Visual Arts, New York
Instructor, MFA Computer Arts - (1996-00), School of Visual Arts, New York
Visiting Artist - (1998) - Bard College, New York
Adjunct Faculty - (1992–94) - Cooper Union, New York
Instructor - (1994) - School of Visual Arts, New York
Grants
The following are grants awarded to Hoberman:
Grand Prix - 1999 - ICC Biennale
Bradford Fellowship - 2001 (National Museum of Photography, Film & Television / Bradford College / University of Bradford)
Award of Distinction in Interactive Art - 1999 - Prix Ars Electronica
First Place, art's_edge Multimedia Competition - 1999 - Art Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts
Design Distinction - 1997 - I.D. Interactive Media Design Review, New York
Archetype Award for Overall Excellence - 1995 - Interactive Media Festival