Jennifer Steinkamp

Who is Jennifer Steinkamp?

Jennifer Steinkamp is an American installation artist who works with video and new media in order to explore ideas about architectural space, motion, and perception.

Born in Denver, Colorado in 1958, Steinkamp is the eldest of five children, three girls and two boys. Her family lived in a number of areas before settling in Edina, Minnesota. In 1979, Steinkamp moved to Los Angeles to attend Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, studying with Mike Kelley, Gene Youngblood, and Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe. She then transferred to the California Institute of the Arts, where she studied experimental animation. Steinkamp returned to Art Center to earn her BFA in 1989 and her MFA in 1991. In 2011, Art Center recognized Steinkamp with an Honorary Doctorate. She is currently a professor in the department of Design Media Arts at UCLA.

Steinkamp uses digital projection to transform architectural space, providing the viewer with a synaesthetic experience, often working in collaboration with musicians Jimmy Johnson and Andrew Bucksbarg to integrate sound into her work.