DiverseWorks on Wednesdays: Jason Salavon

an artist talk about making art through the lenses of data, computation, and the history of painting

Using software processes of his own design, Jason Salavon generates and reconfigures masses of communal material to present new perspectives on the familiar. Though formally varied, his projects frequently manipulate the roles of individual elements arranged in diverse visual populations. This often unearths unexpected pattern as the relationship between the part and the whole, the individual and the group, is explored. Reflecting a natural attraction to popular culture and the day-to-day, his work regularly incorporates the use of common references and source material. The final compositions are exhibited as art objects, such as photographic prints and video installations, while others exist in a real-time software context.

Based in Chicago, Salavon returns to Houston to unveil a new private commission titled “The Master Index (v.Wade)”, which is an organized list of the 5 million most visited English language Wikipedia articles from 2007 to 2013.

Salavon was raised in Texas and earned his MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his BA from The University of Texas at Austin. He has exhibited his work internationally including exhibitions at the Taubman Museum, Roanoke, VA; the Columbus Museum of Art; and the List Visual Arts Center, MIT, Cambridge, MA. His work is included in public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among many others. Previously, he taught at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was employed for numerous years as an artist and programmer in the video game industry. Currently he is an associate professor in the Department of Visual Arts and the Computation Institute at the University of Chicago.