Michael Takeo Magruder
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Michael Takeo Magruder (b.1974, US/UK, www.takeo.org) is a visual artist and researcher who works with emerging media including real-time data, VR environments, mobile devices, digital archives, and AI processes. His practice explores concepts ranging from media criticism and aesthetic journalism to digital formalism and computational aesthetics, deploying Information Age technologies and systems to examine our networked, media-rich world.
In the last 25 years, Michael’s projects have been showcased in over 300 exhibitions in 35 countries, including the British Library, London; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid; the Courtauld Institute of Art, London; EAST International, Norwich; Eastside Projects, Birmingham; FACT, Liverpool; Georges Pompidou Center, Paris; KIBLA Multimedijski Center, Maribor; Museum of London; Nam June Paik Art Center, Seoul; QUAD, Derby; SESI’ Cultural Centre, São Paulo; Somerset House, London; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; and Trans-Media-Akademie, Hellerau. His art has been funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Arts Council England; the British Council; the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation; the EU Culture Programme; the Leverhulme Trust; the National Endowment for the Arts, US; and the National Lottery, UK. Michael has been commissioned by numerous public galleries in the UK and abroad and by the leading Internet Art portal Turbulence.org. He is represented by Gazelli Art House in Mayfair, London.
In 2010, Michael was selected to represent the UK at Manifesta 8: the European Biennial of Contemporary Art and several of his most well-known digital artworks were added to the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art at Cornell University. In 2013, he was a Leverhulme Trust artist-in-residence (2013-14) collaborating with Prof Ben Quash (Theology, King’s College London) and Alfredo Cramerotti (Director, Mostyn) to research and develop a new solo exhibition – entitled De/coding the Apocalypse – exploring contemporary creative visions inspired by and based on the Book of Revelation. In 2014, Michael was commissioned by the UK-based theatre company Headlong to create two new artworks – PRISM (a new media installation reflecting on Headlong’s production of George Orwell’s 1984) and The Nether Realm (a living virtual world inspired by Jennifer Haley’s play The Nether). The following year, he was awarded the 2015 Immersive Environments Lumen Prize for his virtual reality installation A New Jerusalem. More recently, Michael has worked with Prof Aaron Rosen (Director, Parsonage Gallery) to develop projects reflecting on current issues surrounding migration in the West including the Syrian Civil War (Lamentation for the Forsaken, 2016) and the US southern border crisis (Zero Tolerance, 2018). He was artist/researcher-in-residence at the British Library, undertaking the Imaginary Cities (2019) project that creatively examines digital map archives drawn from the Library’s One Million Images from Scanned Books collection on Flickr Commons. In 2020, Michael was the first ever artist-in-residence at the UK National Archives and explored the institution's ongoing digital transformation and what constitutes an archive in the 21st century. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Michael was virtual artist-in-residence at the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts & Religion in Washington, DC where he investigated social and ethical issues surrounding the international health crisis.
Michael received his formal education at the University of Virginia, USA and graduated in 1996 with a BSc (Hons) in molecular biology. His research focuses on the intersections between contemporary art, emerging technology, and interdisciplinary practice. Michael’s writings have been widely published, with contributions appearing in books and journals such as: Poetics Today (2020, Duke University Press, US); Art Libraries Journal (2016, Cambridge University Press, UK); NJP Reader #5 (2014, Nam June Paik Art Center, KR); Preserving Complex Digital Objects (2014, Facet, UK); the International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media (2011, Intellect, UK); Theatre without Vanishing Points (2010, Alexander Verlag, DE), Performing Technology: User Content and the New Digital Media (2009, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, UK); Virtual/Physical Bodies (2008, Centre des Arts, FR) and Die Welt als virtuelles Environment (2007, TMA Hellerau, DE). In addition, Michael has published two monographs: (re)mediation_s 2000-2010 (2012, Peterborough Museum & Art Gallery, UK) that outlines a decade of his work within the areas of news media, mobile devices and virtual worlds; and Imaginary Cities (2019, British Library, UK) that documents his solo exhibition at the British Library.
