Fabian Winkler

Art, Culture & Technology

Fabian Winkler holds degrees from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG)/ZKM Karlsruhe, Germany and UCLA, Department of Design|Media Arts, Los Angeles, USA. From 2003-06 he was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Art. Winkler is currently a Professor of Design, Art, and Performance at Purdue University where he initiated and developed the area of Electronic and Time-Based Art in 2006.

Winkler’s solo and collaborative works have been shown internationally, including Manifest:IO, Berlin, Germany (2025); FILE Festival (2024 and 2002), Sao Paulo, Brazil; Ars Electronica Festival Garden New York City (2021); National Museum of China, Beijing, China (2019); International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (2018), Netherlands; Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2016) the Center of Contemporary Art, Florence, Italy (2011); Subtle Technologies 2011 and 2004, Toronto, Canada; SIGGRAPH 2010, Los Angeles; Spark Festival 2010, Minneapolis; Ars Electronica 2009, Linz, Austria; Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea; ISEA 2006/ZeroOne San Jose; Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh; Videonale 10, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; the 7th and 6th Japanese Media Arts Festival, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Banff New Media Institute, Banff Centre, Canada; and lothringer13 gallery, Munich, Germany. Articles and reviews about his work have appeared in the L.A. Times, Kunstforum International, Süddeutsche Zeitung, N. Katherine Hayles’ book Writing Machines and Art Contemporain et Nouveaux Médias (collection Sentier d’Art) by Dominique Moulon.

Together with Dr. Shannon C. McMullen, Winkler was awarded a National Science Foundation CreativeIT grant (2010 - 12) for an interdisciplinary project bringing together scientists, engineers and artists in a pilot study of creative collaboration at Purdue University investigating new images of nature in contexts such as climate change and global warming.

An ongoing collaboration between Winkler and McMullen, a series of artworks and strategies at the intersection of nature and technology defined by the artists as “Critical Gardening,” explores the premise that gardens express ideas, ideologies and social relations.