Professor of Art and Informatics, University of California, Irvine

Trained in sculpture, Penny extended his practice at the intersection of culture and technology as a maker, technical developer, teacher and theorist, first publishing in the area in 1987. As Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon, 1993-2000, he engaged robotics, VR and AI, and went on to found the Arts Computation Engineering (ACE) graduate program at UCI, 2001-2011. His longstanding concern for embodied and situated aspects of practice has led to a focus on what he refers to as postcogntivist approaches to cognition - the focus of his book Making Sense: Cognition, Computing, Art and Embodiment (MIT press 2017). He was director of A Body of Knowledge: Embodied Cognition and the Arts conference UCI 2016. He was Labex International Professor, Paris8 and ENSAD 2014; and visiting professor, Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media masters, University Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, 2006-2013. He is currently building an experimental ocean-going sailcraft based on Micronesian voyaging canoe designs. simonpenny.net