Oliver Bown

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Most Recent Affiliation(s):

Sydney NSW, Faculty of Art and Design, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director

Also Known as:

Ollie

ISEA Bio(s) Available:

ISEA 2022

Oliver Bown is an Associate Professor at the School of Art & Design, UNSW Sydney, and co-director of their Interactive Media Lab. He researches creative technology practice and is an electronic music maker. He is the author of “Beyond the Creative Species: Making machines that make art and music” (MIT Press, 2021).

ISEA2020

Oliver Bown is senior lecturer and co-director of the Interactive Media Lab at the faculty of Art and Design at the University of New South Wales, in Sydney, Australia. He is a researcher and maker working with creative technologies, with a highly diverse academic background spanning social anthropology, evolutionary and adaptive systems, music informatics and interaction design, with a parallel career in electronic music and digital art spanning over 15 years. He is interested in how artists, designers and musicians can use advanced computing technologies to produce complex creative works. His current active research areas include media multiplicites, musical metacreation, the theories and methodologies of computational creativity, new interfaces for musical expression, and multi-agent models of social creativity.

ISEA2015

Ollie Bown is a researcher and maker working with creative technologies. He comes from a highly diverse academic background spanning social anthropology, evolutionary and adaptive systems, music informatics and interaction design, with a parallel career in electronic music and digital art spanning over 15 years. He is interested in how artists, designers and musicians can use advanced computing technologies to produce complex creative works. His current research areas include media multiplicities, musical metacreation, the theories and methodologies of computational creativity, new interfaces for musical expression, and multi-agent models of social creativity. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Bio from Musebot exhibition:
Oliver Bown, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Faculty of Art & Design, Interactive Media Lab, Sydney, Australia. I am a researcher and maker working with creative technologies. I come from a highly diverse academic background spanning social anthropology, evolutionary and adaptive systems, music informatics and interaction design, with a parallel career in electronic music and digital art spanning over 15 years. I am interested in how artists, designers and musicians can use advanced computing technologies to produce complex creative works. My current active research areas include media multiplicites, musical metacreation, the theories and methodologies of computational creativity, new interfaces for musical expression, and multi-agent models of social creativity. Following a bachelors in mathematics and social anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a masters in evolutionary and adaptive systems at the University of Sussex, I undertook a PhD looking at simulation models of the evolution of human musical behaviour at the Intelligent Sound and Music Systems group, Goldsmiths College, London, under the supervision of Professor Geraint Wiggins. In 2008 I moved to Melbourne, Australia, to work as postdoctoral research assistant with Jon McCormack at Monash University, working on an ARC Discovery Project that looked at ecosystemic approaches to digital creativity. Then in 2011 I took a lectureship at the Design Lab at the University of Sydney, where I am currently on a postdoctoral fellowship. During this time I have played in a number of improvied music ensembles, most notably my electronic music duo Icarus (with Sam Britton), the Not Applicable Artists Collective (with Sam Britton, Tom Arthurs, Lothar Olhmeier, Maurizio Ravalico, Britt Hatzius, Martin Hampton, Rudi Fischerlehner and Oliver Dukert), and Tangents (with Peter Hollo, Adrian Lim-Klumpes, Shoeb Ahmad and Evan Dorrian). I am also a collaborating member of the digital interactive art group Squidsoup, and have collaborated with many artsits, musicians and designers on digital interactive artworks. I am a founding member of the Musical Metacreation Research Network, a member of the steering committee for the International Conference on Computational Creativity, and a creative advisor to the University of Sydney Vivid Festival. I have performed, composed and created interactive works in a number of countries, contexts and collaborations, such as… Sonic Acts Festival Amsterdam, Vivid Sydney, AudioVisiva Milan, Bimhuis Amsterdam, Scala London, Oslo Lux, Kinetica Art Fair, Powerhouse Sydney, ISEA, Four Tet (remix), Murcof (remix), The Leaf Label, Output Recordings, Cafe Oto, Adem Ilhan (duo), Futuresonic, Dysfunktional Beats, The NOW Now, Eclectic Method feat. Chuck D (remix), ABC New Music Up Late, ABC Sound Quality, Codame Festival San Francisco, ABC Catalyst, Science Museum London, FBi Ears Have Ears, Weirdcore, Shepherds Bush Empire London, The Monastery of Sound, JazzHouse Copenhagen, Norburg Festival Sweden, Rump Recordings, Jazzjuice Festival Aarhus, ISEA, HellosQuare, Sage Gateshead, North Sea Jazz Festival, King’s Place London, Brussels Planetarium, The Wire Magazine, BBC Mixing It, BBC Late Junction, Shunt London, Cube Cinema Bristol, Temporary Residence, Siouxie Sioux (remix), Sonic Arts Network Expo, Ars Electronica, Transmediale Festival, Cave12 Geneva, Caribou (remix), Aphex Twin (software development), Lux Cinema London, PRS Foundation for New Music, STEIM Amsterdam, Sage Gateshead, xCoAx, Dispatch Festival Belgrade, Seymour Centre, Australia Council, British Council.

ISEA2013

Ollie Bown is a researcher, programmer and electronic musician interested in live electronic music performance, computational creativity and machine autonomy. He performs and records in a number of electronic and electroacoustic ensembles, with a focus on the realtime control of generative software elements, and autonomous software interacting through sound. Significant performances include the Bimhuis, Amsterdam, the Sonic Acts Festival, Amsterdam, The ICA, London, the AudioVisiva Festival, Milan, and the Dana Centre at the Science Museum, London. His interactive sound design has appeared in works at the Kinetica Art Fair, London, Club Transmediale, Berlin and the Future of Sound Tour, throughout the UK. He has also conducted research into the evolutionary psychology of music and the arts, using simulation models to study relevant evolutionary dynamics.