Design and Art Australia Online

Biography

Brad Miller is an artist and academic at the UNSW Faculty of Art & Design; he lives and works in Sydney. His artistic practice bridges the fields of media arts, experimental design studio, participatory urban media architecture, software development and expanded photography. Typically, his large-scale responsive installations explore identity and memory with a focus on the relationship of things and the inevitability of change—while grappling for permanence in the construction of identity.

Structured by code, the content of his installations comprise original photographic images and sound: augment_me (2009) and data_shadow (2011) and—separately—crowd-sourced images and audio that explore a specific city or natural world: mediated_moments (2012), #capillary (2013) and le_temps (2013). The random and conscious associations created by the works, Miller believes are the subject because it is these that have a complex and subtle effect on self in an age of social media and photography as a real-time communication tool. His recent works: plasma_flow (2012) and starry_night (2014) use algorithms to simulate natural phenomena and so called natural interfaces where our assumed uniqueness is confronted and our mediated relations made more apparent.

Miller has written on the nature of self in the age of ubiquitous networks and the mediation of memories. He has presented his research at: ‘Somatic Embodiment, Agency & Mediation in Digital Mediated Environments’ Sydney (2010) and International Symposium of Electronic Arts Istanbul (2011). While working with collaborators, Miller has presented his contributions at: ICDHS San Paulo (2012), ISEA Sydney (2013), Media-Arts History Conference Riga (2013) and Digital Arts Forum, Copenhagen (2013). As part of his hybrid Media Arts/Design practice Miller has also established himself as a researcher with a multi-disciplinary group (UNSW FBE/QUT/USYD) examining urban informatics, data visualisations and participatory engagement.