About the speaker

Johannes and Harriet Girardoni are installation artists whose work explores the boundaries of perception via the interaction of matter and light across both analog and computational media. Over the past two decades, the Studio’s practice has encompassed material-based sculpture, art integrated with architecture, and responsive installations that combine biological and technological sensing to expand how we perceive, process, and connect with the world around us.

Positioned at the intersection of multiple fields of inquiry, the Studio’s work extends from non-technological sculptures in wood and wax to suprasensory installations that generate algorithmic feedback loops between the work and participant. These investigations are advanced by active cross-pollination with scientists, technologists, architects, performing artists, and philosophers. Contributing to emerging research in neuroaesthetics, the Studio makes the case for the power of art to engage the senses and facilitate neural processing, expanding modes of receptivity and shifting affective states. As such, the work can be understood as a radical challenge to conventional subject-object relationships, transforming viewers into participants and opening new ways of navigating our hyper-mediated society. Central to the Studio’s practice is an understanding of art as continuous with life—a perceptual presence within the spaces we inhabit, embedded in and shaping the conditions of our lived environment.

The work of the Studio has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide, including the 54th Venice Biennale, the Harvard Art Museums, the Ludwig Museum, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, and Lévy Gorvy, as well as at TED2014. Johannes and Harriet Girardoni have collaborated on large-scale permanent works with leading architects such as Tom Kundig, EYRC, and Kulapat Yantrasast/WHY.