Current Position & Biography
Golan Levin is Professor of Electronic Art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he teaches the use of computation in artistic practice. His work spans software, performance, interactive installations and research into how people respond to machines. His current faculty biography describes courses in interactive art, experimental capture, generative design and visualization, alongside courtesy appointments in Design, Architecture, Computer Science and the Entertainment Technology Center. Carnegie Mellon faculty profile [Source 1]
From 2009 to 2022, Levin served as director and co-director of the university's Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry. That leadership is part of his professional history; the current faculty biography gives an end date, and the STUDIO directory lists him among former staff. Older publisher and exhibition biographies still use present-tense language about the directorship. His current university role is the appropriate basis for this profile. STUDIO directory [Source 8]
Levin's own website identifies Pittsburgh as his base, and Feral File places him in Pennsylvania. United States therefore describes his principal professional geography. His connection to digital assets comes from specific blockchain-linked artworks and exhibitions within a broader computational-art career. Personal website [Source 2] · Feral File artist record [Source 9]
Notable Contributions
Levin participated in Feral File's 2022 exhibition On Screen Presence with The Interfered Microscopy Plot. Carnegie Mellon records the performance's premiere on June 2, 2022. The work brought together a digital microscope, a semiautonomous drawing algorithm, the artist's interventions and a pen plotter. Small objects supplied visual material that the software interpreted, while Levin guided the process and the machine produced drawings on paper. This connected the creation of a physical artwork to a live digital performance. University performance announcement [Source 3]
Feral File's work record provides the direct blockchain connection: it identifies Ethereum and a June 2, 2022 mint date. The accompanying description distinguishes an access pass for a recorded edition of the performance from an auction offering that combined a work on paper with video and archival files. Those distinctions matter when explaining what a collector received. The token, recording and physical drawing form related parts of the project, rather than being interchangeable descriptions of one object. Feral File work record [Source 4]
An earlier example is Ambigrammatic Figure #0073, credited to Levin with Lingdong Huang. The work presents a generated face that can be read in either orientation, using StyleGAN2 as part of its production. Feral File's preserved record dates its issuance on Bitmark to April 19, 2020, within a2p's spring collection. The same record documents re-minting on Ethereum in 2025. This gives Katharos a specific history of an artwork moving between blockchain systems, with collaborators and provenance named in the primary record. Ambigrammatic Figure #0073 [Source 5]
Levin also coauthored Code as Creative Medium: A Handbook for Computational Art and Design with artist and educator Tega Brain. Published by MIT Press in February 2021, the book collects teaching assignments, short programming exercises, illustrated examples and interviews with educators. It supports his relevance as an educator in the creative practices underlying some digital art. Its subject is computational art and design; it should not be described as a cryptocurrency investment manual or a specialist blockchain curriculum. MIT Press book page [Source 6]
Why Katharos Is Following Them
Katharos follows Levin because his documented work connects computational art, artistic education and blockchain-based distribution. The Feral File projects provide a concrete basis for inclusion, while his teaching helps place those works within the longer history of artists building their own software tools.
His record is useful for coverage that asks what is being collected, how a work is experienced and what survives after a performance ends. The curator's framing of On Screen Presence explicitly addresses live presence and the vulnerability of digital records. Katharos can use this context to examine an artwork's process and preservation alongside its token history. This is an editorial reason to follow the work, rather than a claim about investment performance or market standing. Exhibition context [Source 7]
Areas to Follow
Blockchain art and provenance: New releases, documented collaborations and changes in the preservation or distribution of existing works.
Performance and collecting: How future projects connect a live experience, its recording, physical objects and the rights attached to a token.
Creative-coding education: Publications and teaching resources that explain computational methods and artistic decision-making.
Archival continuity: Evidence about works moving between platforms or chains, including which records and files remain available.
Current professional activity: University responsibilities, exhibitions and public talks, verified against current institutional or artist sources before being added.
Reporting Scope
Coverage focuses on Levin's public work as an artist, researcher and educator, with particular attention to the documented blockchain projects described here. Community, Media & Education reflects that scope. Collaborators, curators and institutions should receive their own attribution when discussing shared work.
This is an unranked editorial profile. It does not imply endorsement by Levin, Carnegie Mellon, Feral File or any other named organization. Historical artworks and platform records do not establish a current commercial partnership, advisory appointment or continuing release schedule. Reporting on ownership should distinguish token records from copyright, access rights and physical possession, using the terms of each project.
Category
Community, Media & Education
Photo Credit
“Smart Art” by World Economic Forum, 11 September 2012. CC BY-SA 2.0, as recorded in the 2012 Wikimedia Commons license review. Cropped to isolate Golan Levin and resized. Adapted photograph remains CC BY-SA 2.0. No endorsement implied. Original, historical license review and license: Sources 10–12.
Source Notice
Prepared from institutional and direct project sources reviewed on 6 November 2026. Historical roles and platform records are dated in the text.