Douglas Goodwin

Altadena, CA · dgoodwin@gmail.com · cairn.com

Artist · Writer · Educator

My work investigates how technologies of representation shape perception, memory, and public life. Working across moving image, computation, photography, scientific instrumentation, and public writing, I build artworks, courses, and research projects that examine the gap between the world and the systems used to describe it. My practice asks how cameras, algorithms, interfaces, scientific instruments, and artificial intelligence alter what can be seen, remembered, and known.

Academic Appointments

Lecturer

University of California, Los Angeles · Design Media Arts
2024 – Present

Teaching tangible media, creative coding, artificial intelligence, computational media, and interaction design.

Special Faculty

California Institute of the Arts · School of Film/Video and School of Critical Studies
September 2010 – Present

Teaching interdisciplinary courses connecting computation, media theory, experimental cinema, color, and vibecoding GLSL shaders.

Fletcher Jones Scholar in Computation

Scripps College · Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies
July 2019 – June 2025

Developed interdisciplinary curriculum combining computer science, media studies, and studio practice.

Teaching

My courses combine critical inquiry with direct engagement with materials and computation. Students build cameras, train machine-learning models, write software, construct scientific instruments, and investigate the histories of the technologies they use.

Selected Courses

AI for Experimental Animation
Artificial intelligence as an artistic instrument rather than an autonomous creator.

Creative Machines (DESMA 160)
Creative coding and machine learning for artists.

Interactivity (DESMA 28)
Programming interactive media and computational art.

Useless Machines (DESMA 289)
Graduate seminar on uselessness as an artistic strategy — machines that resist, sabotage, or refuse function.

Computational Photography I & II
History, construction, and computational analysis of photographic systems.

Machine Learning for Artists & Animators
Machine learning through studio practice.

Unconventional Computing
Biological, analog, and physical approaches to computation.

Plastics, Neon, and Psychedelia
Color as material, perception, and technology.

Fuzzbox Physics and Popular Distortion
The physics of distortion, from fuzz-pedal circuits to clipping and waveshaping.

Information Theory in the Life Sciences
Information as a bridge between biology, communication, and computation.

Current Research

My current work explores computational systems as instruments of perception. Research areas include:

  • Computational color science
  • Computational photography
  • Artificial intelligence as artistic practice
  • Material computation
  • Biomedia and synthetic biology
  • Media archaeology
  • Public digital infrastructure
  • Scientific visualization

Artistic Practice

My work examines media fidelity, convenience, and human desire through film, computation, photography, installation, and scientific instrumentation.

Recent Projects

Selected Exhibitions & Screenings

Nearest Neighbor — with Rebecca Baron, 2023

  • Visions du Réel, Nyon — world premiere, 2023
  • Concorto Film Festival, Italy, 2023
  • Curtocircuíto, Santiago de Compostela, 2023
  • Block Museum of Art, Northwestern — Chicago debut, 2023
  • Göteborg Film Festival, 2024
  • Chicago Underground Film Festival, 2024
  • REDCAT, Los Angeles — LA premiere, 2025
  • EXTRA / PHENOMENALITIES, Stanford Art Gallery, 2026
  • Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, 2026

Earlier screenings & exhibitions

  • Lossless — first digital work acquired by the George Eastman Museum (permanent collection)
  • Wavelengths, Toronto International Film Festival
  • BFI London Film Festival
  • Oberhausen International Short Film Festival
  • Sert Gallery, Harvard University
  • Ann Arbor Film Festival — Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film
  • Orphans Film Symposium, New York
  • Generic Remix, REDCAT, Los Angeles
  • Collision 11, MIT, Boston, 2007
  • Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
  • Haikutree, SIGGRAPH, Los Angeles, 2001
  • Purgatorio, CalArts, Los Angeles, 2004
  • Eyebeam, New York
  • Brandeis University
  • Boston CyberArts Festival
  • cuddle sit by pool (with Rebecca Baron) — Die Zukunft des Körpers, Frankfurter Positionen, Frankfurt, 2019
  • Pixilerations, Brown University, Providence
  • Los Angeles Filmforum
  • Interchange 3, Gallery 825, Los Angeles
  • Translations, POST-LA, Los Angeles
  • Reactive System::MUSE, Dorkbot SoCal, Los Angeles
  • Ambulante, Mexico — Artifact #1, Detour de Force, Lossless, 2015
  • The Digital Unconscious, University of Chicago — Lossless #3, 2024

Writing

My essays combine technical investigation with cultural criticism, examining the infrastructures through which contemporary life is mediated. Selected work includes:

Books & Chapters

  • The Color Gap (book in progress)
  • “The Rest is Noise: On Lossless” (with Rebecca Baron), in On Not Looking: The Paradox of Contemporary Visual Culture, ed. Frances Guerin (Routledge, 2015)

Essays in The Conversation

Essays

Published on Medium and collected at cairn.com/articles:

Fellowships, Residencies & Research

  • Caltech Data to Discovery Artist Residency, 2026
  • Invited participant, Radcliffe Institute discussions

Lectures & Workshops

  • EXTRA / PHENOMENALITIES, artist panel — Stanford Art Gallery, 2026
  • Ghost Prints from a Broken Magnet: Cyanotypes and the Laschamps Excursion — Hackaday Superconference, Pasadena, 2025
  • The Future of Cinema: From Locarno to LA — UCLA, 2025
  • How Do You Teach Art with AI?, Fletcher Jones Lecture — Scripps Presents, 2025
  • UNBOUND: Transcending Technology and Disciplinarity — CalArts, 2025
  • Nearest Neighbor — Artificial Atmospheres & Unexpected Media, Lisbon, 2024
  • CalArts × A.I. symposium — CalArts, 2024
  • Interdisciplinary Data Science Faculty Panel — Claremont Colleges, 2021
  • Conversation & color workshop with Tony Manzella — Reading Ours, Los Angeles, 2019
  • Counter-Inaugural: On Electronic Privacy — Clockshop, Los Angeles, 2017
  • Ted Serios, Thought-Photographer — Poetic Research Bureau (SEA #5), Los Angeles, 2016
  • Ear Meal interview, 2012
  • Reimagining the Archive: Remapping and Remixing Traditional Models in the Digital Era — UCLA, 2010
  • Looking — Cabinet, New York, with CA Conrad, Wayne Koestenbaum, Eileen Myles & Maggie Nelson, 2009
  • Moles Not Molar reading series — Crane Arts, Philadelphia, 2008
  • Visiting Artist — Rhode Island School of Design & Massachusetts College of Art, 2007–2008

Professional Service

Judge & Mentor — Biodesign Challenge
Member — Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
Co-founder — Computer Science Minor, Scripps College
Organizer — CalArts AI Symposium
Author — CalArts AI Community Statement

Education

MFA · California Institute of the Arts

Experimental Writing · Integrated Media Minor · 2002–2005

BA · Reed College

Directing and Playwriting · Chemistry Minor · 1979–1984

Software Architect · Computational Media Researcher · Educator

Since 1996 I have built software that moves data between systems that were never designed to work together. Examples include one of the first web-based university learning platforms, CAD interoperability services, public transit infrastructure serving millions of riders, computational photography tools, and prototypes for biological computers. The common problem they share is representation: how one system can faithfully stand in for another.

My work combines software architecture, computer vision, scientific instrumentation, and creative computing, with an emphasis on transparent, maintainable systems built for public access. Alongside industry work I develop new computational methods through research, teaching, and art.

Professional Appointments

Lecturer

University of California, Los Angeles · Design Media Arts
2024 – Present

Teaching computational media, creative coding, and artificial intelligence.

Special Faculty

California Institute of the Arts · School of Film/Video and School of Critical Studies
September 2010 – Present

Teaching unconventional computing, AI, computational photography, and interdisciplinary media.

Fletcher Jones Scholar in Computation

Scripps College · Visiting Assistant Professor of Media Studies
July 2019 – June 2025

Developed interdisciplinary computer science curriculum for artists and media scholars.

Lead Developer

LA County Metro
November 2008 – 2019

Architected public software infrastructure supporting one of the largest transit systems in North America.

Lead Architect

Spatial Technology / PlanetCAD · Boulder, CO
2000 – 2002

Spatial Technology created the ACIS 3D geometric modeling kernel; when Dassault Systèmes acquired that business in 2000, the web and digital-manufacturing operations were spun off as PlanetCAD, Inc. Developed early internet services for CAD interoperability, automated model repair, and manufacturing workflows, including engineering data exchange and design-quality validation tools later integrated with Dassault’s CATIA V5. Left for graduate study at CalArts.

Creative Director & Co-Founder

Real Education, Inc. / eCollege.com · Denver, CO
1996 – 2000

Co-founded the company and designed one of the first web-based university learning environments, launched as the University of Colorado’s first online campus. The company rebranded as eCollege.com in 1998 and went public on NASDAQ in 1999; acquired by Pearson in 2007, the platform ran as Pearson eCollege until 2023.

Areas of Research

My research investigates computational systems as instruments of translation. Current interests include:

  • Software architecture
  • Computational photography
  • Computer vision
  • Scientific imaging
  • Creative artificial intelligence
  • Material computation
  • Biomedia
  • Color science
  • Public digital infrastructure

Selected Systems

Rather than treating software as products, I approach systems as research into representation.

Metro Real-Time API
Public infrastructure providing live transit information to mapping platforms, developers, and millions of riders.

Web Anomaloscope
Browser-controlled scientific instrument for citizen-science studies of human color perception.

Afterimage Experiment
Browser-based perception experiment exploring visual afterimages and color adaptation.

The Iron Archive
Computational imaging pipeline generating archival cyanotype negatives through segmentation and custom halftoning.

Touchroom
Distributed collaborative environment supporting classrooms, workshops, and performance.

Vibecoding Shader Toolkit
Open-source GLSL teaching environment pairing LLM-assisted coding with an interactive shader playground, tutorials, exercises, and a critique framework.

Logic Gater
Interactive logic-gate simulator for exploring Boolean logic, circuits, and unconventional computing.

Technical Contributions

Throughout my career I have designed systems that make specialized computational processes accessible to broader communities. Representative work includes:

  • Public APIs
  • CAD interoperability
  • Computational photography
  • Computer vision
  • Creative AI
  • Browser-based hardware control
  • Interactive visualization
  • Distributed collaboration
  • Scientific instrumentation
  • Educational software

Selected Publications

Peer-reviewed
“Using Smart Farecard Data to Support Transit Network Restructuring: Findings from Los Angeles.” Transportation Research Record.

Technical writing
Essays on computational photography, AI, public infrastructure, and color science.

Awards & Research

  • NASA Tech Briefs — Silver Product of the Year (3DModelserver), 1999–2000
  • Peter Wilde Award for Most Technically Innovative Film — Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2009
  • Caltech Data to Discovery Residency, 2026

Education

MFA · California Institute of the Arts

Experimental Writing · Integrated Media · 2002–2005

BA · Reed College

Directing & Playwriting · Chemistry · 1979–1984