Bio
KT Duffy is a new media artist, designer/developer, and arts organizer/curator from Chicago’s southwest side and is currently an Assistant Professor in Art, Technology, and Culture at the University of Oklahoma. They received their MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art. They currently live in Norman, OK.
Duffy has held residencies at Vermont Studio Center (Johnson, VT), Latitude (Chicago, IL), ChaNorth (Pine Plains, NY), Acre (Stuben, WI), ADDS DONNA (Chicago, IL), Florida State University Expanded Media Lab (Tallahassee, FL), Arteles (Haukijärvi, Finland), and Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts (Edgecomb, ME).
They have recently received several grants from the University of Oklahoma including the Forum Public Fellowship, the Carceral Studies Consortium Micro-Grant, and the Leveraging Advanced Technologies for Improving Performance Education Seed Grant. Awards from their previous institutions include a Northeastern Illinois University Summer Research Grant, a Faculty Travel Award, and two College of Arts and Sciences Equipment Fund Grant. From the Maryland institute college of arts: The Mount Royal Graduating Fellowship, Alumni Award for Student Leadership, and the Bromo Seltzer Studio Fellowship. Their awards outside of institutions include a Baltimore CoLab(oration) Grant and The Contemporary Baltimore’s Grit Fund.
Their work has been exhibited and screened at Arlington Museum of Art (Arlington, VA), Vox Populi (Philadelphia, PA), Satellite Art Show (Miami, FL), Mono8 Gallery (Manila, Philippines) South Bend Museum of Art (South Bend, IN), Neon Heater (Finley, OH), ADDS DONNA (Chicago, IL), Comfort Station (Chicago, IL), Ely Center for Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT), Donnelly Foundation (Chicago, IL), Ortega Y Gasset Projects (Brooklyn, NY), Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL), Elmhurst Museum of Art (Elmhurst, IL), Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX), Alfred University (Alfred, NY), Cinemateca Nacional Del Ecuador (Quito, Ecuador), University of Indiana Northwest (Gary, IN), Piano Craft Gallery (Boston, MA), Broward College South Gallery (Fort Lauderdale, FL), Factory Obscura (Oklahoma City, OK), New Media Caucus’s Header/Footer Gallery, New Media Contemporary (Dallas, TX), and University of North Dakota (Grand Forks, ND).
They have done notable talks and workshops at institutions and conferences such as the College Art Association’s Annual Conference, Parsons BFA/MFA DT Program, Florida State University Expanded Media Lab, The MA Media Design program at HEAD – Genève, Switzerland, Stanford University, The Art Institute of Chicago, University of San Francisco, Columbia College Emerging Media Program, Williams College, Rutgers-Camden, University of North Texas, Girlcon, Northwestern University, Champlain College, Generator (Burlington, VT), and Latitude (Chicago, IL). They were recently featured artist at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference. Additionally they have been interviewed for on Artist and Hackers podcast, Society for Typographic Arts designer talk series, The Chicago Graphic Design Club podcast, and Bad at Sports podcast.
Statement
I employ technology and collaboration to summon entities into existence, aiming to foster moments of interaction and genesis within speculative microcosms. Regardless of form, my objective is to envision a future where entities transcend singular realities, expressions, or substances. Through visual elements referencing chaos, catastrophe, and creation, I build worlds beyond the edge of existence. Here, I trace a simultaneous dismantling and emergence, highlighting the dualities and tensions inherent in collapse and creation. Though seemingly nihilistic, my work is rather about connection and meaning beyond human perception, a transcendence that resists being visualized or fully understood.
Drawing from Karen Barad’s Meeting the Universe Halfway, my works are meditations on intra-action: the idea that objects, forces, and beings do not exist as discrete entities but come into being through their entanglements with one another. This epistemology reflects the way I work in the studio, as each of my works are a compilation of experiments in technology and material studies. These collisions of discrete entities embrace the methodologies of Glitch Feminism, disrupting the boundaries in the devices I collaborate with. Here, I utilize the limitations of automated systems as an opportunity to break out of normative media ratios, leading to cleverly manufactured facets whose material transforms from constraint to bridge. The resulting multimedia mashups protrude outside of easy definition and employ a sly cinema that slashes through perspective and dimensionality, visualizing a world on the brink of spawning something unseen and unimaginable; ushering in the impending demise of binary systems.