Laura Dekker’s research-based art practice considers the reciprocal roles of technologies in how we experience, make sense of, cope with, and construct ourselves and our world. She explores these ideas through interactive installations, combining physical materials, video, audio, robotics, rotting organic matter, data programming and machine learning. She aims to engage the viewer-participant with a sensorially rich and provocative experience; virtual objects can intrude into the ‘actual’ world, and objects are activated with a kind of primitive consciousness. Most recently she has been exploring machine implementations of speculative models of consciousness, emotion and expression.
Before studying Fine Art at Central St Martins and MA Computational Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London, Laura worked for many years as research scientist in the Intelligent Systems Lab, Dept Computer Science at UCL, and in several commercial 3D imaging organisations. She received her PhD in 2000 from UCL for work in 3D imaging and computer vision.
Her work is often collaborative, created for unusual sites and contexts. She co-curates and organises projects and exhibitions with the London-based art collective XAP. Since being selected as a Lumen Prize finalist in 2014, Laura has taken part in many projects with them internationally. She was recently invited to join pioneering digital women artists in Technology Is Not Neutral, and has exhibited at the V&A London, the Festival of Light Amsterdam, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, Tate Britain, Pushkin House, Watermans and Auditorium on Broadway New York. In 2018 she was awarded a joint residency by Goldsmiths and V&A Digital Programmes.