Joel Ong

Background

About Joel Ong

Originally trained as an ecologist, I began by designing systems of resonance and feedback (2007-) to explore physical or acoustic environments. my work has recently extended to include social and psycho-geographical implications brought about ubiquitous connectivity (2014-). I am also a visiting artist at the UCLA ArtScience center, an alumnus of SymbioticA, the center for Excellence in Biological Arts at the University of Western Australia. My PhD is from the Digital Arts and Experimental Media faculty at the University of Washington. I am currently Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier II) in Emerging Digital Arts Practice at the University of Victoria's Visual Art Department. The aims of my research are to connect scientific and artistic approaches to the environment, particularly with respect to sound and space. I have been interested in the way objects and spaces can function as repositories of ‘frozen sound’ (Gothe), and in elucidating these, I am interested in creating what systems theorist Jack Burnham (1968) refers to as “art (that) does not reside in material entities, but in relations between people and between people and the components of their environment”.