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Jonathan Harris

Artist

Jonathan Harris makes projects that reimagine how humans relate to technology and to each other.

Combining elements of computer science, anthropology, visual art and storytelling, his projects range from building the world’s largest time capsule (with Yahoo!) to documenting an Alaskan Eskimo whale hunt on the Arctic Ocean (with a warm hat).

He is the co-creator of We Feel Fine, which continuously measures the emotional temperature of the human world through large-scale blog analysis, and has made other projects about online dating, modern mythology, happiness, anonymity,news, and language. His latest project is Cowbird, a community of storytellers working to build a public library of human experience.

Jonathan studied photography (with Emmet Gowin) and computer science (with Brian Kernighan) at Princeton University, and went on to win a 2005 Fabrica fellowship and three Webby Awards. His work has also been recognized by AIGA, Ars Electronica, the state of Vermont (for which he co-designed the state quarter), Print Magazine (which named him a 2008New Visual Artist) and The World Economic Forum (which named him a 2009 Young Global Leader).

His work has been exhibited widely at MoMA (New York), Le Centre Pompidou (Paris), The Victoria & Albert Museum (London), The CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), the Garage Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow), and The Pace Gallery (New York), and has been featured on CNN, NPR, BBC, and Bhutanese television.

He has lectured all over the world, including at the TED Conference, Google, Princeton and Stanford Universities, and at least two hippy forest gatherings.

Starting on his 30th birthday, he documented his life for 440 days with one photo and short story a day.

Born in northern Vermont, he now lives in California, and on Cowbird.