Kevin Hamilton is an artist and researcher with the University of Illinois, where he has served in the New Media and Painting Programs since 2002. He also holds appointments in the Department of Media and Cinema Studies, the Center for Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security, and the Coordinated Science Laboratory, where he is co-Director of the Center for People and Infrastructures.
Kevin’s work lies primarily in domains of academic research. Long-term collaborative projects include historical and theoretical work on the history of interface representations in mediated violence, with a special emphasis on government-produced films related to nuclear weapons development. This research also includes the creation of experimental interactive works for accessing deep multimedia archives.
As an educator, Kevin is focused on integration of practice-based and theoretical approaches to learning about technological mediation. This work has included the development of several interdisciplinary project-based courses and workshops for students from the sciences, arts and humanities, with emphases on prototyping, reflection, and methodologies of collaboration.
Recent artistic work has included a commissioned public project on the history of cybernetics for the State of Illinois at the Institute for Genomic Biology, a performance at Links Hall Chicago on racial and religious histories of the Colorado Rockies, a comic book on local histories for the City of Urbana, Illinois, and a collaborative video about telephone communication for the ASPECT DVD series.
Recognition for his work has included grants from the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, presentation at conferences across Europe and North America (ISEA/ DEAF/CAA/NCA/ACM-SIGCHI), publication in edited journals and anthologies (Routledge/CCCS/Palm Press/UCLA), and invited residencies (Banff/USC-IML/Bratislava).