Department of Performing and Digital Arts

Bill Psarras



Rank
Assistant Professor

Bill Psarras (b. 1985) is an artist and academic exploring poetics across different media. He is an Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Performing and Digital Arts, University of the Peloponnese, at the intersections of site/performance art, installations and digital media. As an artist for 2020/21, Bill received the ARTWORKS Stavros Niarchos Foundation Artist Fellowship Award. His art practice merges the poetic and the technological; often through site/walking performances, installations, video art/digital art and poetry; having city, flanerie, boundaries and sea as main motifs in his art. His artworks have been exhibited in international festivals, group exhibitions (Onassis Foundation, MOMus, Thessaloniki Concert Hall, FILE, Athens Digital Arts Festival, VIDEOFORMES International Festival, WPA Media, Film and Video Poetry Society, ROOMS2013, OutTopias Benaki Museum, Nice!, Video Art Miden, Matera Festival, CICA Museum of Art, FONLAD, Cadence Video Poetry, International Forum of Performance Art 2023, Bari International Art Expo Festival 2014, Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2010) and cultural institutions across Europe, US and Asia. He holds a PhD in Arts and Computational Technology (Goldsmiths University of London) with his thesis exploring urban emotional geographies through walking art, senses and embodied technologies; suggesting the concept of ‘hybrid flanerie’. He has also an MA in Digital Arts (University of the Arts London) and a BA/MA inter. in Audiovisual Arts (Ionian University). He has conducted a 2-year PostDoc on walking performance, media arts and geohumanities, fully funded by State Scholarship 2017-2019 (affiliation: Dept. of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University). His art practice and research has been supported by Onassis Cultural Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, MOMus museum, NEON organisation. In the past, he has been an adjunct lecturer at the Ionian University and University of the Peloponnese. His research has been published across academic peer-reviewed journals (LEA MIT Press, Technoetic Arts, International Journal of Arts and Technology), conferences proceedings (ISEA 2013, Hybrid City, Taboo-Transcendence-Transgression TTT, Walking Encounters, DCAC), book chapters (Routledge, University Studio Press, NDC, Tziolla Publications) and symposia (MOMus) in the intersections of performance, urban/cultural studies and digital arts. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Technoetic Arts Journal (Intellect). Bill is also a musician across rock and ambient genres, and has also published two poetry collections (Tundra, 2017 – Pigi Publications and Urbanaut, 2023 – Iolcos Publishing). Since 2019 he is founding member and Art Director of Primarolia organisation and annual contemporary art exhibition.

Field
Performance Art, Installation and Digital Arts: Arts-based research and Art practice
Studies
2019, PostDoc Walking/Performance art, Media Arts and GeoHumanities, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University, GR (State Scholarship 2017-19)
2015, PhD Arts and Computational Technology, Goldsmiths Digital Studios / Dept. of Computing, Goldsmiths University of London, UK (AHRC scholarship 2013-14)
2010, MA Digital Arts, Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK
2009, BA/Integrated Master Audio and Visual Arts, Department of Audio and Visual Arts, Ionian University, GR

Keywords: video art, performance art, installation art, art and public space, flaneur, walking as art, psychogeography, digital media, space/place theories, geohumanities, new media arts, mobile media/locative media
Correlation with courses