About

Derek Curry is an artist and researcher whose work examines how emerging technologies create new forms of power and reshape social relations, with a particular focus on the ethics of automated decision-making in machine learning and AI systems. His practice combines academic publishing with critical art-making, using research methods drawn from both the social sciences and computer science to build dialogical, interactive artworks and games that function as research artifacts in their own right: instruments for probing questions that aren't easily accessible through traditional research alone.

As artwork, this practice aims to give viewers and participants a visceral, embodied understanding of the socio-technical systems that shape their lives, in a way that provokes genuinely open-minded critical thought rather than a predetermined conclusion. As research, it aims to question foundational assumptions and open up modes of inquiry unavailable to the positive sciences alone.

Most of this work is made in close collaboration with Jennifer Gradecki, as a two-person collective spanning performance, interactive sculpture, data-based art, networked and mobile media, and both analog and digital games. Having studied under Andrea Fraser during his MFA and Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble during his PhD, Curry's practice extends the traditions of institutional critique and tactical media — a lineage he and Gradecki continue today, including co-authoring a chapter in Critical Art Ensemble's final book.

Curry holds a PhD in Media Study from the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and an MFA in New Genres from UCLA. He is currently an Associate Professor in Art + Design at Northeastern University.