Lives and works in Cambridge, Massachusets, and Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Kelly Dobson received a BFA in Fine Arts at Cornell University and went on to earn a Master of Science in Visual Studies and in Media Arts and Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In 2007 she received a PhD in Media Arts and Sciences from the same insititution.
Dobson works in the realms of technology, medicine and culture. Her projects involve the parapraxis of machine design – what machines do and mean for people other than the purposes for which they were consciously designed. Areas of investigation include voice and agency, prosthetic social extensions, public performance, re-appropriation of domestic appliances, and companion machines as interventions from within the structures of new healthcare robot development. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at Witte de With in Rotterdam, Mediamatic in Amsterdam, Circulo De Bellas Artes in Madrid, the Millennium Museum in Beijing, ISEA in Helsinki and Tallinn, Goldsmiths College in London, Fringe Exhibitions in Los Angeles, and The Kitchen, Eyebeam, Gigantic Art Space, Exit Art and MoMA in New York City. She is currently Department Chair of Digital + Media at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Selected Exhibitions
2008
‘Untethered’, Eyebeam, NYC
‘Feeding Frenzy’, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, NYC
‘Culturing Nature : : Culturing Technology’, Katherine E Nash Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2007
‘Electric Lab’, Exit Art, NYC
2006
‘Play Nice’, Fringe Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California
2005
‘Scope New York’, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, NYC
‘Wearable Body Orgons’, exhibition during ‘Creativit and Cognition’, Goldsmiths, University of London (solo)
2004
‘Museum N8’, Mediamatic, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
‘Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts’, ISEA 2004, Helsinki Finland and Talinn, Estonia