Jessica Thompson is a media artist working in sound, performance and mobile technologies. Her practice investigates the ways that sound reveals spatial and social conditions within cities, and how the creative use of urban data can generate new modes of citizen engagement.
Her artworks have shown in exhibitions and festivals such as the International Symposium of Electronic Art (San Jose, Dubai, Vancouver), the Conflux Festival (New York), Thinking Metropolis (Copenhagen), Beyond/In Western New York (Buffalo), New Interfaces in Musical Expression (Oslo), Audible Edifices (Hong Kong), Artists’ Walks (New York), Locus Sonus (Aix-en-Provence), the Art Gallery of Windsor Triennial (Windsor), InterACTION (Kitchener), HASTAC (Vancouver) and Re:Sound (Aalborg) and included in publications such as Canadian Art, c Magazine, the Leonardo Music Journal, Acoustic Territories, Organised Sound and the Journal of Sonic Studies.
Thompson has received grants from the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and is a 2019 recipient of an Ontario Government Early Researcher Award for ‘Borderline’, a research-creation project that uses sound, data and algorithms to create new understandings of place. She has has also served as an external reviewer for Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the Government of Ontario.
She is an Associate Professor in Hybrid Media at the University of Waterloo.