John Klima
1965–

Ca. 1980, artist John Klima attempted to code a 3D maze on a TRS-80 with 4k RAM and failed miserably, but has been obsessed with 3D graphics ever since. Contracting for companies such as Microsoft, Turner Broadcasting, and Dun & Bradstreet from 1993 to 1998, Klima honed his programming skills while continuing to make art within the flexible schedule that free-lance programming provided. In 1998, Klima discontinued activities as a commercial programmer to focus solely on the creation of art software. His work was shown frequently in New York and at European festivals, such as VIPER (Switzerland) and EMAF (Germany). His work glasbead was included in the New Media New Face exhibit at the ICC in Tokyo, Japan (1999) and received the Golden Lasso Award for Art in the Web3DRoundup at SIGGRAPH 2000 in New Orleans. His work ecosystm, commissioned by Zurich Capital Markets, was shown at the Whitney Museum as part of the exhibition BitStreams (2001). His work EARTH was exhibited at the National Library of Medicine, at SIGGRAPH 2001 in Los Angeles, and in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

Wikipedia entry

Introduction

John Klima (born 1965 in Redondo Beach, United States) is an American new media artist, who uses hand-built electronics, computer hardware and software to create online and in gallery artworks.

Received his BFA from State University of New York in 1987

He has had solo exhibitions at Postmasters Gallery and the Whitney Museum's Artport in New York City, and the Bank Gallery in Los Angeles

For a period in 1993 Klima worked as a coder for Microsoft developing Microsoft's internal PowerPoint slides, to create the illusion of a presentation on screen.

In 1996 he worked for the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, his work with the company included the design of a learning game that was later distributed to the sales representatives of the company for the launch of Zyrtec.

In 2014 John founded Scratchbuilt Studios in Lisbon, Portugal. The studio is used for music and experimental sound projects. In 2018 he was invited to The New Art Fest, an art and technology festival based in Lisbon and exhibited at the National Museum of Natural History and Science (Lisbon).

He lives and works in Brooklyn and is currently adjunct professor at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brooklyn Polytechnic University. Klima was a resident at Eyebeam.