jonCates

Artist, Educator, Academic Leader

Glitch Art and Cultural Research

jonCates has been making and teaching Art since the 1990s

Academic Leadership

School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), 1999–2023

Chair of Faculty (2020–2021), highest elected faculty position, representing approximately 700 faculty across 26 departments and programs
Chair of Faculty Senate (2016–2017), leading faculty governance
Chair, Film, Video, New Media, and Animation (2012–2016), leading approximately 40 faculty and 6 staff across curriculum, hiring, budgets, facilities, and program development
First tenured New Media Art faculty hire, creating and sustaining New Media and Media Art Histories programs across departments and school
Undergraduate Coordinator, FVNMA (2016–2017), reviewing and developing curriculum
Chair, Graduate Dean Search Committee and Faculty Search Committee; Provost Search Committee and Faculty Contract and Tenure Review committees

Art

Glitch Art

Pioneer since the 1990s

Creating and establishing the field through Art exhibitions, festivals, writing, and education

Exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Ars Electronica, Digital Art Center Taipei, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, Hong-Gah Museum Taipei, Vancouver Art Gallery, Museum of the Moving Image, Kasseler Kunstverein, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Art Basel Miami, and others

Glitch Western

Founder of the international Glitch Western genre since 2016, working across Digital Art films, games, and writing

Cultural Research

Chicago New Media

Curator of the acclaimed Digital Art survey exhibition at Gallery 400, University of Illinois Chicago (2018), invited to Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria (2019)

Supported by MacArthur Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, U.S. Embassy Vienna, Goethe-Institut Chicago, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Illinois Arts Council, City of Chicago, and others

Glitch Art Gallery

Founder and Director

Curating over 150 artists in physical exhibitions in Taipei, Berlin, and the USA, with hundreds more artists presented online

Teaching

Creating academic programs and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on Digital Art, Media Art Histories, and games

Founder and Director of glitch.school, an international educational project and platform in USA and Taiwan

Invited lectures and teaching include Harvard Art Museums / Harvard University, Ars Electronica, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Digital Arts Festival Taipei, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Northwestern University, Nanyang Technological University, and others

Books and Publications

Chicago New Media 1973–1992, University of Illinois Press (2018)

Radical Software, West Den Haag (2018)

Chapters in books from MIT Press, University of Chicago Press, Penn State University Press, Intellect Books, Gestalten, and others

Education

Media Art Histories M.A., Donau-Universität Krems, Austria 2009

Studio Art B.F.A. with honors, Illinois State University 1997