Julian Oliver is New Zealander, Critical Engineer and artist based in Berlin.
His projects and the occasional paper have been presented at many museums, international electronic-art events and conferences, including the Tate Modern, Transmediale, Ars Electronica and the Japan Media Arts Festival. His work has received several awards, most notably a Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica 2011 for the project Newstweek. He has given numerous workshops and master classes in software art, augmented reality, creative hacking, data forensics, computer networking, object-oriented programming for artists, virtual architecture, artistic game-development, information visualisation, UNIX/Linux and open source development practices worldwide.
Julian is a long-time advocate of the use of free software in artistic production, distribution and education.
Together with Gordan Savičić and Danja Vasiliev he published the Critical Engineering Manifesto to frame their practices, foregrounding the languages and cultures of Engineering, rather than Art, in the creative and critical process.
Excerpt from the Manifesto:
-The Critical Engineer considers Engineering to be the most transformative language of our time, shaping the way we move, communicate and think. It is the work of the Critical Engineer to study and exploit this language, exposing its influence.
-The Critical Engineer considers any technology depended upon to be both a challenge and a threat. The greater the dependence on a technology the greater the need to study and expose its inner workings, regardless of ownership or legal provision.
-The Critical Engineer deconstructs and incites suspicion of rich user experiences.
http://criticalengineering.org
http://julianoliver.com/