Robert Spahr | SIU

Robert Spahr is an Associate Professor and Director of the School of Media Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is a visual artist who produces code-based automated art, live art performance, drawing, painting and sculpture all of which explores the nature of the Internet, it's strengths and failures, producing what has been called a post-Internet art that reflects the networks effect on our society and culture.

Robert Spahr is an Associate Professor and Director of the School of Media Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He earned his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Sculpture at Parson’s School of Design in New York City and his Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Fine Arts with a concentration in Sculpture from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, College of Art and Design. He is a visual artist who produces code-based automated art, live art performance, drawing, painting and sculpture all of which explores the nature of the Internet, it's strengths and failures, producing what has been called a post-Internet art that reflects the networks effect on our society and culture. This work has been written about in publications such as Thinking through Digital Media: Transnational Environments and Locative Places by Dale Hudson and Patricia R. Zimmermann and Dysfunction and Decentralization in New Media Art and Education by Robert W. Sweeny.

Recent notable international and national exhibits include: Re-Fest 2023 Festival organized by CultureHub at La Mama, NYC, 2023; Milton's Balm Cruft, published in the digital humanities journal The New River housed at Virginia Tech, 2021; GENERATIVE ART 2021 International Conference, Exhibition, and Live Performances, held in Sardinia, Italy, 2021; Generative Art FUTURING Past, an event organized by the Generative Design Lab, as a partner of @postasis Erasmus+ European Program, hosted by the Casa delle Letterature inside the Cultural Program Massenzio, Rome, Italy, 2019.

Co-founder and artistic director of the critically acclaimed theatre company, Expanded Arts, he produced and/or directed over 300 productions, including the "Free Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Lot" series and the "94 plays in 94 days summer festival" presented on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The successful off-broadway "Shakespeare's R&J" was first produced by Expanded Arts and was the longest running Romeo & Juliet in the history of Off-Broadway.

Past technical work includes over 10 years of web development, user interface design, and product management at New York City companies including About.com, Global Education Network, Beliefnet, and the branding firm of Siegel+Gale.

Past teaching experience includes the University of the Arts; Hartford Art School; State University of New York, Purchase College; and Dowling College, and a visiting artist at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and the School of Media at HSE University, (Higher School of Education) in Moscow, Russia.