Julian Bleecker is an artist and technologist with a history developing innovative mobile research projects.

Bleecker holds a Ph.D.

Ph.D.

A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 from the History of Consciousness

History of Consciousness

The History of Consciousness program is an interdisciplinary graduate program in the humanities with links to the sciences, social sciences, and arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz....

 Program at University of California, Santa Cruz

University of California, Santa Cruz

The University of California, Santa Cruz, also known as UC Santa Cruz or UCSC, is a public, collegiate university; one of ten campuses in the University of California...

. He's been an artist-in-residence at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, exhibited work at Ars Electronica

Ars Electronica

Ars Electronica is an organization based in Linz, Austria, founded in 1979 around a festival for art, technology and society that was part of the International Bruckner Festival. Herbert W. Franke is one of its founders. It became its own festival and a yearly event in 1986. Its director until 1995...

, a Research Fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication

Annenberg Center for Communication

The Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California promotes interdisciplinary research in communications between the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Viterbi School of Engineering, and the separate USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, also funded by...

 and an Assistant Professor at the USC Interactive Media Division

USC Interactive Media Division

The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts's Interactive Media Division first accepted students in 2002. In addition to coursework in film production, screenwriting, and animation, students in the division study across three disciplines within interactive media: immersive...

. He now works as an interaction designer at Nokia Design (Los Angeles).

Bleecker has been active as a researcher in the areas of mobile computing, pervasive networks and near-field interaction systems. In 2006, organized a workshop entitled "Networked Objects" at [EPFL | Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne], held in May of 2006, exploring his interest in Near-Field Interaction and the Internet of Things

Internet of Things

The Internet of Things refers to uniquely identifiable objects and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. The term Internet of Things was first used by Kevin Ashton in 1999. The concept of the Internet of Things first became popular through the Auto-ID Center and related...

.

This vector of research on mobile computing, pervasive networks and near-field or proximity-based interaction systems has been a theme of Bleecker's research and design projects for a number of years. One of his earlier projects in this area was PDPal (2003-2005), a series of technology project that investigated how mobile devices could be integrated into a system to allow people to annotate the experiences they have, as in a location-specific diary. The PDPal series was commissioned by Eyebeam Atelier

Eyebeam Atelier

Eyebeam, is a not-for-profit arts and technology center in New York City. Their stated purpose is to promote the creative use of new technologies by funding artwork, education and exhibitions. The founders were John S. Johnson III, David S. Johnson and Roderic R...

 in New York City, and the Walker Art Center

Walker Art Center

The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...

in Minneapolis to find ways for creating art-technology projects that made use of readily available mobile devices, such as PDAs and mobile phones. PDPal was a collaborative project with designers Marina Zurkow and Scott Patterson.

Other more exploratory projects looked at ways to use common technologies, such as WiFi, in unexpected ways. WiFi.Bedouin and WiFi.ArtCache were two projects that use wireless communications networks to create local networks that make digital content available in very location-specific ways. WiFi.ArtCache was invited for exhibition at ISEA 2006 in San Jose, California, and was the winner of the Audience Choice Award. It was also commissioned for exhibition at the group show "Reclaim the Spectrum" in Seville, Spain (2006).

More playful commissioned art-technology projects include "Pussy Weevil", an animated, sensor-based, screen-based character, which was selected for exhibition at Ars Electronica (2005), the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City (2003-2004), and Art Interactive in Boston (2003).

Bleecker was lead technologist on the Sonic Memorial Project, a Peabody Award winning website and radio documentary based on audio recollections of the events of September 11.

External links

• Techkwondo - Bleecker's portfolio
• The Near Future Laboratory - Bleecker's research blog