Paul Goodfellow

Paul Goodfellow is an artist with an interest in the application of systems and processes in the understanding of nature and art. With a background in environmental science, systems thinking and Media Art he is interested in the aesthetic and affective experience of information and the liminal spaces which emerge between the subject and its simulation in data. He employs surveying, data collection and image processing methods derived from Geography, Earth Science and Media Art into his art practice to explore spatial and temporal patterns which exist in both nature and information about nature.

Paul is the programme leader of the MA in Animation and teaches on a range of modules on both the BA and MA Animation degrees, with a particular emphasis on experimental, rule-based, live and real-time methods of research and production.

Paul Goodfellow’s current research explores how we have shifted our attention from a material engagement with the Earth to a primary engagement with systems which describe and simulate the Earth. He describes this shift in attention to secondary information as the Post-Systems Condition, which manifests as a deep longing or saudade for a lost nature. More broadly, he is interested in the systemic and relational ideas of Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour and Niklas Luhmann which emphasize process and how these ideas contrast with Graham Harman’s Object-oriented ontology which reasserts the independence of withdrawn objects.

Paul has presented his work at both conferences and exhibitions including ISEA (Istanbul), Transart Film Festival (Berlin), Museum of Contemporary Art (Taipei) and Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (Newcastle). He has published articles in Garageland, Arts journal and Leonardo Electronic Almanac. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and member of the research group The Cultural Negotiation of Science, and the international research network Substantial Motion.