Biography

Sukumaran was born to a Japanese mother and an Indian father in Sapporo, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in 1974. Sukumaran grew up in Shimla

Shimla

Shimla , formerly known as Simla, is the capital city of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of the British Raj in India. A popular tourist destination, Shimla is often referred to as the "Queen of Hills," a term coined by the British...

, India.

Sukumaran is a trained architect with a degree from School of Planning and Architecture

School of Planning and Architecture

School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi is a National Resource Institute of India. It is also one of the few premier 'Centrally Funded Technical Institutions ' under the Government of India. Currently there are 3 SPAs all over India, administered under the MHRD, Government of India...

, Delhi

Delhi

Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...

, India. He holds an MFA from Department of Design|Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

.

Artistic approach

Sukumaran practices media art using a variety of media to convey complex ideas around public and private, and technology and society.

"Ashok's recent work examines possibilities between human habitat and "embedded" technologies: the physical and social sites of digital media. In adopting the view that many new-media technologies are not fundamentally new, his projects often imagine "what could have been" across the disciplines of interactive art, early and pre-cinema, and architecture." http://www.villamontalvo.org/ar_pastfellows.html

"My recent work deals with the intersection of human habitat and technologies being ‘embedded’ within it. These are concerns about how technologies sit on the ground, what patterns they establish, and how we may move between them. The technologies themselves may range from electricity to imaging technologies or wirelessness, for example. I am interested in how we collectively 'see' them, and negotiate the property boundaries, systems administrators, and thresholds of understanding inscribed within." (Artist's personal statement)

Professional

He was the Sun artist in residence for 2006.

He showcased his art in the Singapore Biennial 2006.

Awards

• Golden Nica-interactive art Ars Electronica 2007 - "Park View Hotel"
• First Prize for the UNESCO Digital Arts Award 2005 – “City and Media”.
• Honorary Mention Ars Electronica- interactive art - "Glow Positioning System" 2005
• 2003 David Bermant Foundation Award
• Grand prize in the Samsung Art and Design Institute’s competition for 2002
• Universal Warning Sign Design Exhibition - First Prize - Yucca Mountain

External links

• http://0ut.in//0ut.in Ashok Sukumaran recent works]
• Sun -artist in residence
• UCLA page
• Brief Profile
• UNESCO page
• CNET story
• Electric fences. Human Sheep. Essay by Sukumaran
• Recurrencies Project by the artist