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.