James Powderly

James Powderly (born 1976) is an artist, designer and engineer whose work has focused on creating tools for graffiti artists and political activists, designing robots and promoting open source culture.

Powderly studied music composition at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. After college, he received a master's degree from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. James worked at Honeybee Robotics and was part of the team that worked on the Mars Exploration Rovers Rock Abrasion Tool. As the collaborative team Robot Clothes, Powderly and artist Michelle Kempner, received an artist residency at Eyebeam for their project, Automated Biography. The project used small robots to tell the "personal story about a sick person and their partner."

In 2005, James became a Research and Development Fellow at Eyebeam where he began collaborating with Evan Roth. Working as the Graffiti Research Lab, Roth and Powderly developed open source tools for graffiti writers and activists, such as LED Throwies and L.A.S.E.R. Tag. Together they also founded the Free Art and Technology Lab a.k.a. F.A.T. Lab. Most recently James has won several awards for his work on the EyeWriter project, including the 2009 Design of the Year in Interactive Art from Design Museum, London, the 2010 Prix Ars Electronica, the 2010 FutureEverything Award and featured on NPR and TED. Several of James' works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. James was a professor at Hongik University in the Visual Communication Design Department in Seoul, South Korea before moving to Fort Lauderdale, Florida to work for augmented reality company Magic Leap.

Selected Exhibitions, Screenings and performances include:

• 2013 Eyebeam, FAT GOLD, New York, NY, 2013
• 2012 Ljudmila, "The Lickers", Ljublana, Slovenia, 2012
• 2011 Museum of Modern Art, Talk to Me, New York City, New York
• 2010, British Design Museum, Brit. Insurance Design of the Year 2010, London, UK
• 2009 Platoon Kunsthalle, Showcase, Seoul, South Korea
• 2009 Street Art Dealer Interactive Exhibition, Steal From Work, Bristol, UK.
• 2008, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, Beyond a Memorable Fancy, New York City, New York
• 2008, Museum of Modern Art, Rough Cut: Design Takes a Sharp Edge, 3rd Floor, New York City, New York
• 2008, Museum of Modern Art, Design and the Elastic Mind, New York City, New York
• 2008 Tate Modern, Street Art, London, UK.
• 2007, Sundance Film Festival, New Frontiers, Park City, Utah
• 2007, 2nd Digital Arts Festival, OpenPlay, Taipei City, Taiwan
• 2007, Microwave Festival, Luminous Echo, Hong Kong
• 2007, Ars Electronica, Second City, Linz, Austria
• 2007 Esther M Klein Gallery, "Artbots", Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• 2007, Eyebeam, Open City, New York City, New York
• 2006, Ars Electronica, Goodbye Privacy, Linz, Austria
• 2005 Eyebeam with Michelle Kempner, New York
• 2004 ArtBots, Harlem, New York

In June 2008, before the 2008 Summer Olympics, Powderly was contacted by Students for a Free Tibet who wanted to use his laser stencil invention, which can laser project simple stencils up to 2 km away, to project the words "Free Tibet" on a Beijing landmark, without acquiring any permission from the local authority. He said that "My understanding of the Tibetan issue was not in depth," but that he wanted to make "a general statement about freedom of speech". After practicing his message projection out of an apartment, he and two other protesters were arrested, interrogated, and detained at Chongwen Detention Center and given 10 days for "disrupting public order", which is unusual for American activists detained in China. He was released during the closing day of the Olympics, on August 24.