Jennifer Hall, 2000 Rappaport Prize Winner: Interactive media

Jennifer Hall is among this country’s foremost leaders in the field of art-and-technology—as an artist, educator, curator, and researcher. Since the late 1970s, Hall has used newly emerging technologies to push the aesthetic envelopes of sculpture, video, performance art, sound art, and viewer-interactive/participatory installations. Her ongoing exploration of technology is not an end in itself, however, but a means to create beautiful and meaningful works of art that speak profoundly of the human experience. Hall’s work addresses a range of intertwined contemporary issues that include the human body and its relationship to machines, the emotional affect of "rational" science, language, communication and telecommunication, the roles of women in post-industrial society, art and healing, and shifting questions of identity, responsibility, and surveillance in a world increasingly dominated by the computer. Her work has been exhibited at the M.I.T. Museum, the Boston Computer Museum, at the National Conference of the Women’s Caucus for the Arts, the Museum de Bella Artes in Caracas, Venezuela, and on numerous institutionally-supported web sites. In 1999, Hall participated in the DeCordova exhibition Make Your Move: Interactive Computer Art Installations, the flagship project for the first annual Boston CyberArts Festival.

In 1988, Hall founded – and continues to direct – the Do While Studio in Boston, Massachusetts, one of the world’s first computer art ateliers. This small non-profit institution is dedicated to "the critical appraisal of digital technology—always in concert with traditional forms of artistic expression such as painting, sculpture, poetry, choreography, storytelling, music, and design." Do While achieves this mission through projects and programs that include technology classes for artists, K-12 curriculum development in new media for art educators, international artist residencies and fellowships, and research and development of new art/technology and arts/business linkages. More information on the Do While Studio can be found at www.dowhile.org.

In addition to her duties at Do While, Hall also teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art. Hall holds a Master of Science in Visual Studies from M.I.T.’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute. She has been widely published in web and print periodicals, and has lectured internationally on art and technology. Hall’s activity as a curator of contemporary art includes the groundbreaking exhibition From the Storm: Artists with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (T.L.E.). The show opened in Boston in 1992 at Do While Studio and traveled to The American Neurology Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana; The Canadian Academy of Neurology Annual Congress, Newfoundland, Canada; and The Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Washington, D.C. Hall, who suffers from TLE, received a special award from the National Epilepsy Society in 1994 for her research into connections between T.L.E. and creativity.