David Rokeby

David Rokeby is an internationally renowned new media, electronic, video, and installation artist who has been exploring human relationships with digital machines for over 40 years, starting with Very Nervous System in 1982. His interests have ranged from the issues of digital surveillance in such works as Watch (1995), Guardian Angel (2002) and Sorting Daemon (2003) to critical examination of the differences between the human and artificial intelligence (e.g. The Giver of Names, 1991-2000; and n—cha(n)t, 2001).

In his art and publications, David has also probed the social, political, and psychological challenges posed by emerging technologies, and conversely, how these can be used to expand the dialogue about what it means to be human in our contemporary world.

He has exhibited extensively in the Americas, Europe and Asia. Exhibitions include the Biennales of Venice, Florence, São Paulo and Gwangju, and his work has been shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Kiasma (Helsinki), the National Art Museum of China (Beijing), The National Gallery of Canada, Deichtorhallen (Hamburg), the Centre Culturel Canadien (Paris).

Rokeby’s works are in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, as well as several corporate and private collections.

He is a recipient of a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (Canada), a Prix Ars Electronica Golden Nica for Interactive Art (Austria), and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts “BAFTA” award (U.K).

He has taught at OCAD University, Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto. He was an artiste invité at Le Fresnoy Studio Nationale des Arts Contemporains in 2011-12.

David was honoured to serve as 2018-2019 artist-in-residence at the Jackman Humanities Institute at U of T, and is an affiliate of the Vector Institute. (2018-)

As Director of the BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies and AI, he teaches about, researches and develops applications of Machine Learning and other emerging technologies in live performance with an eye to understanding their broader cultural significance. In this capacity, he works extensively with local, national and international artists and performers to creatively imagine integrations of technology into their works. Past, current and upcoming residencies include American performance artist Laurie Anderson, Canadian playwright Jason Sherman, German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, American poet Nick Flynn, and Canadian actors / creators Ryan Cunningham, Rick Miller, Sebastien Heins and Maev Beaty.

Recent Projects:

Voice Scroll (real-time voice to Panoramic Images)

Created in conjunction with students in BMO Lab, Voice Scroll has been exhibited at Neurips (New Orleans, 2023), Elektra Biennial of Digital Art in Montréal (2024), Unfold X 2084 in Seoul Korea (2024). It has been featured in performances with Laurie Anderson (Koerner Hall, Toronto, and Factory International, Manchester, UK) and Nick Flynn (Rice University, Houston).

The Resistible Rise of Arturo UI, by Bertolt Brecht (2022). For this project, a co-production between BMO Lab and Canadian Stage, Rokeby created a novel AI-based technique to enable direct gestural control of lighting, sound and video cues by a performer in motion capture.

Timbre Space (2021). An interactive sound installation where people’s movement through the space engaged with 512 sound samples of very different sound character (timbre) all tuned to the same note of the octave. This was exhibited at the Quebec Biennale in 2022.

Ongoing and Upcoming Projects:

He is an organizer of “Who’s Afraid of AI?”, an international conference on AI, the Arts and Humanities at University College. (Oct 2025)

David is working with Canadian Stage Artistic Director Brendan Healey, playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig, actor Maev Beaty and creative technologist Aidan Ware on a new play about AI.

He is Principal Investigator on an ongoing NFRF grant entitled “Beyond the Pose: Towards an Interdisciplinary Understanding of Dynamic Human Movement.”

Notable Lectures and Presentations

“Creative Possibilities and Generative Potentials,” Applied AI Institute, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada. (2025)

“THEY ARE FALLING ALL AROUND ME / Postcards from the Edge of Latent Space,” presentation / performance with Nick Flynn, Moody Centre for the Arts, Rice University, Houston, U. S. A. (2024)

Keynote Lecture, IX Symposium, Société des Arts Technologiques, Montreal, Canada. (2019)

Distinguished Lecture in AI and Creativity, Vector Institute, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada. (2019)

Urban Fields Lecture, Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art, Toronto, Canada. (2017)

Killam lecture, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. (2014)

Keynote Lecture, Invisibility and Unawareness Conference, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. (2011)

Keynote Lecture, NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression), Oslo, Norway. (2011)

Lecture, “Computing across the Disciplines” Distinguished Lecture Series, Brown University, Providence, U.S.A. (2009)

Kodak Lecture, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. (2005)

Keynote lecture, New Forms Festival, Vancouver, Canada. (2003)