Ben Grosser investigates how the designs of platform interfaces—from social media to AI chatbots—shape human behavior, desire, and culture.
Through tactics such as software recomposition, interface reduction, and radical reimagination, his artworks expose software’s hidden politics and propose alternatives that restore user agency. Recent exhibitions include Centre Pompidou in Paris, Somerset House in London, ZKM in Karlsruhe, SXSW in Austin, and the Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo. Grosser’s projects have been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Wired, The Atlantic, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel. The Guardian proclaimed his film ORDER OF MAGNITUDE to be a definitive artwork of the 21st century, “a mesmerising monologue, the story of our times.” RTÉ dubbed him an “antipreneur,” and Slate called his work “creative civil disobedience in the digital age.” His artworks are regularly cited in books investigating the cultural effects of technology, including The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, The Metainterface, and Investigative Aesthetics, as well as volumes centered on media art practice such as Electronic Literature and Digital Art.
Grosser is Professor of New Media at the University of Illinois (USA), and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
