Jason Krugman attended Tufts University and studied Economics and Fine Arts. After graduating, Krugman struggled to imagine a career as a fine artist and instead focused on economics and later finance. He worked at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch processing structured credit trades prior to the financial collapse. In early 2007, with no inkling of the impending calamity, Krugman returned to school to study technology and art. Inspired by the burgeoning use of electricity and code to create interactive art, he enrolled at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU. Krugman learned about microcontrollers, soldering, digital fabrication and new materials. His thesis at ITP, a wind sensitive LED array, was blogged about by Kanye West which in turn got him his first commercial commission, making a larger, more portable version to show at several large music festivals. Krugman soon after began receiving inquiries to make permanent LED installations for buildings and people’s homes. Today, Krugman’s practice is still based around the design and execution of new types of LED artworks. He has developed a hand-soldered LED mesh, several cable systems, and a variety of custom printed circuit boards for LED artworks. He specializes in arranging electricity and lights in 3-dimensional space. His sculptures often use their physical structure to conduct electricity to the light sources. This eliminates most of the insulated wiring and connectors allowing thousands of lights to sit softly amongst minimal wire forms.
Photo by Wired Brandlab.
