Zach Lieberman

Zach Lieberman is an artist and educator based in New York City. He is a professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Future Sketches research group. His work originated in fine arts such as sculpture and printmaking, disciplines centred on physical materials. A transition to web design led him to animation software, which provided a new means to connect his established visual interests with the logic of computation. This shift from tangible media to code has since defined his artistic practice.

Lieberman's work is created with code. He is a co creator of openFrameworks, an open source system for creative programming. A central element of his practice is a daily sketching discipline, a commitment he has maintained for many years. Works such as the Box Light Studies series emerge from this regular activity. The process is one of translation, where Lieberman observes phenomena of light and reflection in his environment and then develops algorithms to describe them. This activity of coding in turn changes his own mode of observation, forming a continuous loop between the seen world and its computational representation.

The artist's stated concern is the expressive potential of computation, which he describes as a medium for poetry. The Box Light Studies works are presented as direct investigations into the fundamental components of light, colour, and geometry. While their medium is contemporary, these studies connect to historical traditions of inquiry into perception and abstraction. The images are a record of the artist's own process of looking, attempting to capture the essence of fleeting moments of illumination. For a viewer, the works offer a way to see the familiar world through the structure of an algorithm, considering how code can mediate and change our perception of light.