John F. Simon, Jr., whose exhibition of digital art is on view at SITE Santa Fe through September 8, 2002, uses cutting-edge computer technology to forge new ways of making, seeing, and thinking about art. With a dual background in the arts and computer science, Simon has created drawing software and written interactive software programs in order to make works of art that reference art history, systems theory, and digital principles.

James P. Crutchfield is a theoretical physicist whose accomplishments include the founding of the Art and Science Laboratory, a nonprofit research center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, dedicated to fostering a dialogue between the arts and the sciences. Crutchfield's areas of research have included nonlinear dynamics, critical phenomena and phase transitions, chaos, and pattern formation, among others. His current interests center around emergence, natural computation, evolutionary dynamics, the dynamics of learning, and collective cognition.

Simon and Crutchfield both have a strong interest in the nature of self-expression. Using some of Simon's work as illustration, the conversation will focus on the creative aspects of computer coding, including the play between code that creates itself (the internal program on the computer) and the act of writing code (the author/programmer). A catalogue, designed by the artist in collaboration with SITE Santa Fe, will be published to document Simon's exhibition. This full-color catalogue will feature a conversation between Simon and Crutchfield, a curatorial statement, and installation photography.

John F. Simon, Jr. holds an M.F.A. degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and an M.A. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Washington University, St. Louis. He lives and works in New York City. James P. Crutchfield received his Ph.D. in Physics and his B.A. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is currently a full-time resident at the Santa Fe Institute.

SITE Santa Fe's Art & Culture series, which includes the Artists On SITE gallery talks, is supported by Lannan Foundation, LLWW Foundation, Madelin Coit and Alan Levin, Bobbie Foshay-Miller and Chuck Miller, and Marlene Nathan Meyerson.