Eric Forman is a Brooklyn-based artist working for nearly twenty years at the intersections between fine art, design, architecture, and technology. Forman develops his own interactive software to create objects and spaces that are aware of their environment and can dynamically respond to viewers and other physical phenomena. For nearly twenty years, his work has used playful interaction to reveal issues of language, simulation, and perception.
Forman’s work creates modes of interaction not often found in dominant forms of new tech media: subtle, slow, surprising. Sometimes delightful, sometimes unsettling, his work plays on our uneasy fascination with new technology, yet does not cynically deny us its magical qualities. Underneath all is an investigation of the uncertain present of human and technological co-evolution – the overlappings of natural and artificial, real and simulated, person and machine.
Forman shows that when the experiences of the future are engineered, they can also still contain mystery, difficulty, and beauty. The technical complexity in this work is sometimes transparently revealed as itself worthy of reflection, while at other times it is hidden to show the powerfully complex nature of perception itself.
Eric taught himself to program computers as a child in the 1980s and was an early member of the groundbreaking online media entity Pseudo Programs in the mid 1990s. Eric Forman Studio was founded in 2003, and in 2012 became a founding member of New Lab, a next generation innovation space in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Eric is also the co-founder of BioArt New York, a collective pairing artists and biologists for unusual collaborations. His studio’s design practice specializes in the latest interactive experiences and fabrication techniques for diverse clients.
Eric received his Masters in 2002 from ITP at Tisch School of the Arts (NYU), and his B.A. from Vassar College in 1995 where he developed his own interdisciplinary program called “The Philosophical Ramifications of Computer Technology.” His thesis work there was a pioneering academic investigation of virtual reality and its potential impact on space, ontology, and identity.
Eric is currently faculty and Head of Innovation at the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA (School of Visual Arts). He has previously taught at the Digital+Media MFA department at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), the Graduate School of Architecture at Columbia University, Parsons The New School for Design, the Interactive Arts MFA department at Pratt Institute, the Interdisciplinary Sculpture department of MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art), and many others. He also likes to ride a bike.
Instagram: @ericformanstudio
