Jonathan Harris | 2010 Gain Conference

Jonathan Harris

Combining elements of computer science, architecture, statistics, storytelling and design, Jonathan Harris’s online projects create large-scale living portraits of the human world—portraits that both simplify and complicate our understanding of it. Jonathan discusses his recent work and poses intriguing questions about what kind of space the digital world is becoming and what that world is doing to us as individuals.

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 to documenting an Alaskan Eskimo whale hunt on the Arctic Ocean. He is the co-creator of We Feel Fine, which measures the emotional temperature of the human world through large-scale blog analysis, and created recent projects about online dating, modern mythology, anonymity, news and language.

After studying computer science at Princeton University, Harris won a 2005 Fabrica fellowship and three Webby Awards. His work has also been recognized by AIGA, Ars Electronica, the state of Vermont,  Print magazine and The World Economic Forum. He has given talks at Google, Princeton and Stanford Universities, the TED Conference and at two hippy forest gatherings. His projects have been shown at The Museum of Modern Art, Le Centre Pompidou, and have appeared on CNN, NPR and the BBC. Born in Vermont, he now floats between Brooklyn, the open road and cyberspace, documenting his life with one photo a day.