Education

2014 – 2019

Sheffield Hallam University, Ph.D.

Thesis title: ‘Artistic Research into Distraction, Agency and the Internet’.

2003 – 2006

Sheffield Hallam University, MA in Fine Art (with Distinction).

1993 – 1996

Newport School of Art & Design, BA (Hons) Interactive Arts.

Solo & Two-Person Exhibitions

Apr 2012

Loopholes, South Square Gallery, Bradford.

Mar 2012

Sequences, Bloc Projects, Sheffield.

Nov 2011

Michael Day and Nikola Uzunovski, Babel Art Space, Trondheim.

Jan 2009

Filter, Add-Art, Eyebeam, New York, US, online project.

Feb 2005

Transit, Timebase Gallery, Hull Time Based Arts, Hull.

Dec 2004

Scramble, End Gallery, Sheffield. Collaboration with sound artist Neil Webb.

Selected Group Exhibitions

Sep 2023

Tees Show, Rogue Artist’s Studios, Manchester.

Nov 2019

Computer Vision Art Gallery, International Conference on Computer Vision, Seoul, South Korea.

Jun 2018

Title, formatted in sentence case (Not Title Case and NOT ALL CAPS), hints at an interesting issue and/or methodology, doesn’t spill onto a third line (ideally) and isn’t hot pink, Sheffield Institute of Arts, Sheffield.

May 2017

Affect & Social Media Conference #3, University of East London, London.

Mar 2017

TALKEX17, Rotherham Open Arts Renaissance, St Ann’s Building, Rotherham.

Aug 2016

Testing, Testing, SIA Gallery, Sheffield.

Jul 2016

Northern Light, SIA Gallery, Sheffield.

Jun 2016

Concrete Utopia, Bloc Projects, Sheffield.

Oct 2015

Sluice__2015, Oxo Tower Wharf, London.

Oct 2015

Manchester Artist’s Book Fair, Holden Gallery, Manchester.

Sep 2015

London Art Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, London.

Jul 2015

Liverpool Artists Book Fair, Liverpool Central Library, Liverpool.

Jul 2015

Terminus, The Scottish Queen, S1 Artspace, Sheffield.

Mar 2015

The Hepworth Print Fair, The Hepworth, Wakefield.

Mar 2015

Pages International Artists Book Fair, The Tetley, Leeds.

Nov 2014

In The City, Hanover Project, Preston.

Sep 2014

Sheffield Bazaar, Festival of the Mind, Castle House, Sheffield.

May 2014

Possession (2), Lanchester Gallery Projects, Coventry.

May 2014

Deadpan Exchange VIII, Casa Maauad, Mexico City.

May 2013

Possession (1), Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre, Bangkok.

Nov 2012

The Everyday, Bloc Projects, Sheffield.

Oct 2012

Outcasting Fourth Wall, Cardiff Contemporary, Cardiff.

Sep 2012

The Manchester Contemporary, Spinningfields, Manchester.

Sep 2012

The View From Here, Cooke’s Studios, Barrow-in-Furness.

Jun 2012

Nothing Ever Happens, OSR Projects, Yeovil.

May 2012

Overworlds and Underworlds, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds.

Mar 2012

LabCulture Archive, Kingcombe, Dorset.

Mar 2012

Lightworks Festival, Grimsby.

Jul 2011

Ever Remote, Site Gallery, Sheffield and Crescent Arts, Scarborough.

Jun 2011

Th’Owd Towser, Holmfirth Arts Festival, Holmfirth.

Jun 2011

Off Duty, The Burlington Fine Arts Club, Manchester.

May 2011

Ever Remote, South Square Gallery, Bradford.

Feb 2011

Audiograft Jukebox, Oxford.

Feb 2011

Prism 8, Orchard Centre, Sheffield.

Awards & Commissions

2017

Making Ways Research and Development Award

2015

Invisible Layers, co-commissioned by Tinsley Art Project

2014

Vice Chancellor’s PhD Scholarship, Sheffield Hallam University,

2012

Relays 11 & 12, private commission

2012

Lightworks Animation Commission

2011

Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award

2011

Staffordshire University I-ACT Research Award

2007

British Council Grant

2007

Staffordshire University Research Award

2006

University of Glamorgan Research Award

2005

Emerging Artists Residency and Commission, Hull Time Based Arts

Residencies

Jun–Aug 2012

Digital Cumbria Residency, Signal Films, Barrow-in-Furness.

Nov–Dec 2011

Lademoen Kunstnerverksteder Guest Artist, Trondheim, Norway.

Oct 2010

Digital Media Lab Residency, Hull.

Oct 2009

PVA LabCulture Residency, Burton Bradstock, Dorset.

Mar 2005

Hull Time Based Arts, Hull. Emerging Artists residency and commission.


Biography

Michael Day is an artist who works with drawing, moving image, digital media, print, and sound. His recent work is informed by the problematic persistence of meritocracy in the popular imagination, despite its ineffectiveness as an organising concept for the improvement of equity in society. After completing a doctoral study that focused on asymmetrical power dynamics in online settings, he began to develop an interest in his own autobiography and class background. This has led to the production of an ongoing body of work-in-progress that explores the architectural legacy of the area he grew up in, and in a critique of the widespread, insistent belief in meritocracy in the art world, set against the harsh reality of working conditions for many artists.

Previously based in Cardiff, South Wales, he has exhibited and screened work in venues across the UK and in Europe, Mexico and the USA. He has collaborated with performance artist and NESTA fellow Eddie Ladd on a number of occasions, most recently on the touring show Cof Y Corff, commissioned and premiered at the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

His curatorial practice began with his participation in the Sheffield-based HAG (Host Artist’s Group), co-developing and producing HAG exhibitions and screening programmes for four years until February 2008. During this time, he worked on HAG projects including Host 4: Cinema, a screening and DVD of short video works, Host 6: Beauty, a print project for the Sheffield Pavilion 2007, premiered at the Venice Biennale and Documenta XII, and Host 8: Observatory for the Art Sheffield 08: Yes / No / Other Options* citywide event.

In 2014, he was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Bursary to undertake Ph.D. study. His research is concerned with experiences of distractibility that are said to have emerged alongside the recent widespread adoption of digital communications technologies. Should compulsive engagement with digital media best be seen as ‘information overload’, or as a desirable retreat into enjoyable technological distraction? How might the way digital systems are understood—as data streams or cloud processes—impact on the way we attend to them, or how they algorithmically attend to us?

He is currently a fractional Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Staffordshire University.


Contact

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All material on this website is © Copyright Michael Day, except where indicated. All rights asserted. No material may be reproduced without prior written consent of the author.

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