Benjamin Ross Nicholson
Boulder CO
benjaminnicholson3 at gmail dot com
SUMMARY
I am a performer, writer, researcher, and musician based in Boulder, CO.
EDUCATION
2018-2023 PhD Media Arts + Practice, University of Southern California, Los Angeles CA
Graduate Certificate in Performance Studies, USC Roski School of Art and Design
Dissertation: “Dying to Be: Prefigurative Performances of Necrontology Against Neoliberal Subjectivity”
2015-2017 MFA Visual Arts, University of Chicago, Chicago IL
2007-2011 BA Electronic Music and Multimedia and BA Literary Arts, Brown University, Providence RI
TEACHING
2026- Media Aesthetics (CDMP 3400), CU Boulder
2025- Critical Perspectives on Media Practices (CDMP 3450), CU Boulder
2025- Performance Media Practices (CDMP 3820), CU Boulder
2024- Photography for Non-Majors (ARTS 1171), CU Boulder
2024- Introduction to Cinema Studies (CINE 1502), CU Boulder
2024- Worldbuilding & Storytelling (LIBB 2510), CU Boulder
2024- 2D Design: Elements + Principles (FD1020), RMCAD
2023 Experimental Studies (ART3500), RMCAD
2023- Time-based Media (FD2220), RMCAD
2023- Studio Seminar: Methods of Inquiry (FD1600), RMCAD
2018 Visual Language: On Images - Art in the Age of Infinite Replicability (ARTV 10100), UChicago
SELECTED PERFORMANCES AND EXHIBITIONS
2025 The Bean Counters | Denver Fringe Festival – Denver, CO
2024 SLZY MYLFS: Hometown World Tour | Denver Fringe Festival - Denver, CO
2023 Immersive Denver Presents: Immersive Futures Jam | Denver, CO
2023 Consultation with the Corpse | Denver Fringe Festival - Denver, CO
2022 My Friend Kyle (Has a Brain Tumor) | Denver Fringe Festival - Denver, CO
2021 Deathless and Taxless: A Corporate Exorcism | Hollywood Fringe Festival - Los Angeles, CA
2021 Dirty Words: A Collaborative Editing of Obscenity | CARPA7 - Helsinki, Finland
2020 Benjamin Nicholson’s Personal Meeting Room: An Intimate Visit Under Surveillance | Benjamin Nicholson’s Personal Meeting Room, Zoom
2019 disInc. presents: Human Resource | Special Topics - Los Angeles, CA
2019 disInc. presents: Out of Focus Group | Vibe Check - Los Angeles, CA
2019 disInc. presents: Corporation v. Corpse | PAMLA 2019 - San Diego, CA
2019 The Last PowerPoint | Hollywood Fringe Festival - Los Angeles, CA
2019 disInc. presents: until death do me part | iMAPpening @ USC School of Cinematic Arts - Los Angeles, CA
2017 MBI Presents: Term Life Assurance™ | Logan Center for the Arts – Chicago, IL
2017 And and and (UChicago MFA Thesis Show) | Logan Center for the Arts – Chicago, IL
2016-2017 The Institute for Recurrent Progress (w/ Kyle Hossli) | Open House Contemporary – Chicago, IL
2016 The Path Is Not Linear (Group Show) | Gallery Blanc - Chicago, IL
2016 blackPixel on whiteEmptiness | Emerging Illinois Artists Triennial @ McLean County Arts Center - Bloomington, IL
2016 Partial Foods (fruit punch) | FOTA: Sight x Sound - Chicago, IL
2016 Mip | Kitchen Sink Presents: A Pop Up Museum @ Cornell Florist - Chicago, IL
2015 to begin | Immerse Yourself Opening: Brown University CAVE - Providence, RI
2011 love_me | Honors Thesis Performance - Providence, RI
2011 System | Opening of Granoff Center for the Creative Arts - Providence, RI
2010 invoke(Object object); | Brown University CIT - Providence, RI
2009 224 | Zenman Improvisations V2, performed by Ulrich Maiss - Providence, RI
2009 to begin | Pixilerations Art Festival - Providence, RI
CONFERENCE PANELS
2025 “System Failure: How to Survive and Thrive in Today’s Art and Design Higher Education” w/ Amelia Jones | College Art Association Annual Conference – New York, NY
2024 “Neoliberalism and the ‘Luxury’ of Art and Higher Education” w/ Amelia Jones | The Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present Conference – New York, NY
2024 “Selling Out?: The Neoliberalism of the Art World and Academia” w/ Amelia Jones | Association for Art History Conference – Bristol, UK
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
2023 “From WaterFire to Earth and Air: Reckoning New Lines of Flight in Downtown Providence” w/ Fidelia Lam and Triton Mobley | Imagining America National Gathering - Providence, RI
2022 “Visioning Alternate Climate Futures” w/ Fawn Douglas, Mary Heglar, and Jared Krause | SXSW - Austin, TX
2020 “The Corporate Vampire: Hostile Takeover in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” | Popular Culture Association National Conference 2020 - Philadelphia, PA
2020 “Use It Less, Use It Differently, Use It Better: PowerPoint as Poetic CounterPoint” | NeMLA Convention - Boston, MA
2020 “Peals of Static: The [Un]Conscious Cyber Corpses of William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy” | NeMLA Convention - Boston, MA
2020 “This Corpse as Vulgar Media: Swiss Army Man and Zombie Subjectivity” | Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference - Albuquerque, NM
2019 “The Living Corpse as Archive and Repertoire” | Neil Postman Graduate Conference in Media, Culture and Communication @ NYU - New York, NY
2019 “This Corpse is Your Corpse, This Corpse is My Corpse: Laughing with Our Tentacular Terminus” | PAMLA 2019 - San Diego, CA
2019 “Corpse Subjectivity: A Proposal for an Alternative to the Corporate Subject” | SASE 2019 @ The New School - New York, NY
2019 “EMOVAC: Designing a Mixed Reality Experience for 5G” | IEEE GEM 2019 @ Yale - New Haven, CT
Grants
2024 National Endowment for the Arts, Grants for Arts Projects - Presenting & Multidisciplinary Works, $10,000
2024 Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, Faculty Professional Development Grant, $1,500
TECHNICAL SKILLS
Audio - Max/MSP, ProTools, Reaper, Ableton, live sound, studio recording, theatrical sound
Video/Image - Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Jitter
Coding - Java, Processing, Javascript, D3
RELATED EMPLOYMENT
2025- Denver Fringe Festival (link), Director of Programming
2024- The Rithm Project (link), Strategic Development and Worldbuilding
2023- University of Colorado Boulder, Lecturer
2023- Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, Adjunct Professor of Foundations
2015-2018 GoGlobal Consulting, Lead Consultant
2011-15 TuneIn, Inc., Business Development Manager, Emerging Content Manager