Adam Nash

Based in Melbourne, Australia, Adam Nash is a digital artist, composer, programmer, performer, teacher and writer. He works primarily in networked virtual environments, exploring them as sites of playable art. Working in a post-convergent idiom, his work uses the web, game engines, generative and procedural programming, data and motion capture, artificial intelligence, synthetic evolution and live performance. His work has been presented in galleries, festivals and online in Australia, Europe, Asia and The Americas, including SIGGRAPH, ISEA, 01SJ, the Venice Biennale, and the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. He was the recipient of the inaugural Australia Council Multi-User Virtual Environment Artist in Residence grant. He has been artist in residence at Ars Electronica FutureLab. He was shortlisted for the National Art Award in New Media at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art.

He was awarded an Australia Council Connections Residency, with colleague John McCormick. For this, they founded SquareTangle , now called Wild System, developing AI-driven performative collaborations between virtual environments and robots. He has worked as composer and sound artist with Company In Space (AU) and Gibson/Martelli (UK), exploring the integration of motion capture into realtime 3D audiovisual spaces.

He was awarded a PhD from the Centre for Animation and Interactive Media at RMIT University, Melbourne, researching multi-user virtual environments as postconvergent media.

He is Director of the Playable Media Lab in the Centre for Game Design Research, and Program Manager of the Bachelor of Design (Digital Media), both in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His academic writing explores the ontology and the aesthetics of the digital, as well as the connection between the digital and philosophical notions of the virtual. As a PhD supervisor, he specialises in practice-based research of playable digital art.
 

Capabilities

Digital media as platform for art
Ontology of the digital
Virtual Environments
Game Design
Digital Audiovisuals
Post-convergent Media
Sound Design
Artificial Intelligence in art and performance
Artificial Evolution in art and performance
 

Projects

Pure Absence
Out of Space
Wild System
Man A
City of Android Children
Neuron Music Conductor 
 

Publications

• Nash, A. and Vaughan, L. 2017. ‘Documenting Digital Performance Artworks’, in Sant, T. (ed.), Documenting Performance. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Clemens, J., Dodds, C. and Nash, A. 2016, ‘Big Screens, Little Acts: Transformations in the Structures and Operations of Public Address’, in Papastergiadis, N. (ed.) Ambient Screens and Transnational Public Spaces. Hong Kong University Press.
• Nash, A. 2015, ‘An aesthetics of digital virtual environments’, in New Opportunities for Artistic Practice in Virtual Worlds, IGI Global, Hershey, United States of America, pp. 1-22 ISBN: 9781466683846
• Clemens, J. and Nash, A. 2015, ‘Being and media: digital ontology after the event of the end of media’, in The Fibreculture Journal, Fibreculture Publications, Australia, vol. 24, pp. 6-32 ISSN: 1449-1443
• McCormick, J. Hutchison, S. Nash, A. Vincs, K. Nahavandi, S. and Creighton, D. 2015, ‘Recognition: combining human interaction and a digital performing agent’, in The International Journal of Virtual Reality, I P I Press, United States, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 18-24 ISSN: 1081-1451
• Riley, M. and Nash, A. 2015, ‘Contemplative interaction in mixed reality artworks’, in Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Electronic Art Annual Conference (ISEA 2014), ISEA International Foundation Board, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, pp. 260-266 (ISEA 2014)
• Nash, A. 2014, ‘Interference Wave: Data and Art’, in Interference Strategies, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Leonardo/ISAST, San Francisco, United States, pp. 214-220 ISBN: 9781906897321
• Greuter, S. and Nash, A. 2014, ‘Game Asset Repetition’, in Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Interactive Entertainment (IE 2014), Keith Nesbitt (ed.), ACM, United States, pp. 1-5 (IE 2014)
• Nash, A. 2012, ‘Affect and the medium of digital data’, in The Fibreculture Journal, Fibreculture Publications, Australia, no. 21, pp. 10-30 ISSN: 1449-1443
• CODE – A Media, Games & Art Conference, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia, 2012. Authored paper: Triple Darkness: Digital Data, Display and Code in Thought and Expression. Co-authored paper with Matthew Riley: Reproduction: Contemplative Interaction with a Mixed Reality Artwork.
• Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference, Vicotrian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Australia, 2012. Authored paper: Interference Wave: Data and Art.
• 25th Society for Animation Studies Conference, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, 2012. Authored paper: Allopoietic Animation Systems and the Modulation of Digital Data. Co-authored paper with Dr Stefan Greuter: Repetition in Games.
• Australian Journal of Virtual Art. ISSN 1839-5481. Co-founding Editor.
• Clemens, J. and Nash, A. 2011, ‘Take a good hard look at yourself: autoscopia and the networked image’, in Column 7 New Imaging: Transdisciplinary Strategies for Art beyond the New Media, Artspace, Sydney, Australia, no. 7, pp. 39-49 ISSN: 1835-3487
• First International Conference on Transdisciplinary Imaging at the Intersections between Art, Science and Culture. Artspace Gallery, Sydney, NSW, Australia. November 2010. Coauthored paper with Dr Justin Clemens: Take A Good Hard Look At Yourself: Autoscopia and the Networked Image
• Imaging Identity: Media, Memory and Visions of Humanity in the Digital Present. Australian National University, Humanities Research Centre and National Portrait Gallery Canberra, Australia, July 2010. Co-authored paper with Dr Justin Clemens: Your Privacy Is Important To Us: Autoscopic Collaboration in the Post-Convergent Era
• Nash, A. 2007, ‘Real time art engines 2: Sound in games’, in SwanQuake: The User Manual, Liquid Press/i-DAT, Devon, United Kingdom, pp. 27-36 ISBN: 9781841021720
• Nash, A. 2007, ‘Realtime Art Engines 3: Post-convergent Practice in MUVEs’, in Proceedings of the 2007 Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Martin Gibbs, Larissa Hjorth, Ester Milne, Yusuf Pisan (ed.), RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia (Fourth Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment)
• Zambetta, F. Nash, A. and Smith, P. 2007, ‘Two Families: Dynamical Policy Models in Interactive Storytelling’, in Proceedings of the Fourth Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment, Marin Gibbs, Larissa Hjorth, Ester Milne, Yusuf Pisan (ed.), RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia (Fourth Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment)
• Laboratory for Advanced Media Production, Australian Film TV & Radio School, Freycinet, Tasmania, October 2006, Invited participant.
• ANAT New Media Workshop: Create_Space_05. North Melbourne Arts House, Melboune August 2005, Co-faciliator.
• VitalSigns 2005: The Conference of the School of Creative Media, RMIT University. Authored Paper: ‘Realtime Art Engines: Interactive Entertainment in the Post-Ironic Era’
• FreePlay: The Next Wave Independent Game Developers Conference. Authored Paper: ‘Realtime Art Engines: The Work of Adam Nash’
• Nash, A. 2004, ‘Scorched Happiness: Multi-User Realtime 3D Space as a Live Performance Medium’, in Informit RMIT Library: Image, Text and Sound 2004: The Yet Unseen: Rendering Stories, Pauline Anastasiou and Karen Trist (ed.), Informit Library, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia – Online (Image, Text and Sound 2004: The Yet Unseen: Rendering Stories)