Nathaniel Stern

Nathaniel Stern works between worlds. An artist, writer, educator, and researcher, his practice spans contemporary art, technology, ecology, and public culture. For more than twenty-five years he has produced projects ranging from interactive installations, internet interventions, and participatory performances to ecological sculpture, experimental printmaking, writing, and AI-driven collaborations.

Stern is the author of the peer-reviewed books Interactive Art and Embodiment: The Implicit Body as Performance (Gylphi, 2013) and Ecological Aesthetics: artful tactics for humans, nature, and politics (Dartmouth, 2018), and has published extensively in exhibition catalogs, edited collections, academic journals, and mainstream media. He has also edited and contributed to numerous scholarly and creative publications. His work examines how humans, technologies, and environments continually shape one another, often through projects that blur distinctions between artistic, scientific, technological, and social inquiry.

His work has been exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, festivals, and public venues including the Venice Biennale, Museum of Art and Light, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Museum of Wisconsin Art, Johnson Museum of Art, Wits Art Museum, Binghamton University Art Museum, Furtherfield Gallery, and the International Symposium on Electronic Art, among many others. Grants and fellowships include support from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Science Foundation, Fulbright Program, and numerous public and private organizations. His work is held in public, private, and corporate collections internationally.

Stern is a full Professor of Art & Design and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where his teaching, research, and creative practice connect artistic experimentation with interdisciplinary inquiry. His work has been featured by outlets ranging from Leonardo, Rhizome, Juxtapoz, Neural, Right Click Save, and Art Journal to NPR, WIRED, BBC, Time, Scientific American, and other international media.