James Powderly was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.A. in the year of the dragon, 1976. He has been making technology and media at the fringes of robotics, graffiti, space science, tattoos and rock n roll since 1992. James was a Senior Research Fellow in the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab developing creative tools and media to directly enrich the public domain. Prior to working at Eyebeam, he was an engineer and the Director of Technology Development at Honeybee Robotics, a Manhattan-based NASA contractor. He was a part of the team that developed and operated the Mars Exploration Rover’s Rock Abrasion Tool and built a 4-meter, wall-drilling robot for Diller + Scofidio’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. James has been awarded grants, fellowships, detentions and commissions for his own work, including an Award of Distinction in 2006 from Ars Electronica for co-founding the Graffiti Research Lab. His art and design projects have been shown on six continents, including multiple exhibitions at both the Tate Modern and the MoMA, and his first movie, GRL: The Complete First Season, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. James has been featured in mainstream and alternative media around the globe, including the New York Times, Wired, Time Magazine, Time Asia, Rolling Stone, The Taipei Times, El Pais, Il Corriera Della Sera and Esquire, on Fantastico in Brazil, B92 in Belgrade, KBS and SBS News in South Korea and ABC News in the US, and on the web at sites like Slashdot, Boing Boing, Digg.com and on the front page of YouTube. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the permanent collection of robotic debris on the planet Mars, but you can find it year-round on the web and on other people’s property all over the world. James has worked as an adjunct faculty member in the Communication Design and Technology Department at Parsons the New School for Design since 2007. James lives in Berlin, Germany and sleeps with a cat named Schnitzel. I am James Powderly and I approve of this message. Free Chongwen!