معرفی
John Craig Freeman is a Professor of New Media at Emerson College in Boston, where he has been teaching since 2002 in the School of Film, Television, and Media Arts. He is a public artist with over twenty years of experience using emergent technologies to produce large-scale public work at sites where globalization impacts local communities. His work seeks to expand the notion of public by exploring how digital networked technology transforms our sense of place.
Freeman received a Bachelor of Art degree from the University of California, San Diego in 1986 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990. He is a founding member of Manifest.AR, an international artists collective that has pioneered augmented reality as interventionist public art.
His research interests focus on augmented reality, virtual reality filmmaking, and digital media art. Freeman explores sites where globalization impacts local communities, creating immersive experiences addressing social and political issues. His work bridges artistic practice with technological innovation to create what he describes as "a distinctly global art form in the twenty-first century," continuing Andy Warhol's tradition of American art in the twentieth century. He examines how digital technologies can transform public space and foster understanding of global interconnectedness.
Freeman's work has been exhibited internationally at major venues including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, SFMOMA, FACT Liverpool, Kunsthallen Nikolaj Copenhagen, Triennale di Milano, ICA Boston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Beijing. His projects often address migration, environmental concerns, historical memory, and globalization's impact on local communities.
- Commissioned by ZERO1, Rhizome.org, and Turbulence.org
- Published in Rhizomes, Leonardo, Journal of Visual Culture, and Exposure
- Cited by Christiane Paul, Lucy Lippard, and Margot Lovejoy in seminal digital art texts
As an educator, Freeman has influenced new media artists through his teaching while maintaining an active studio practice. His recent projects like Climate Change Migration Stories (2022), developed at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, continue his commitment to using technology as a tool for social change and public engagement through augmented reality interventions.
