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We Feel Fine — 2006
Welcome

The wide-ranging practice of artist/technologist Jonathan Harris incorporates
computer science and cartography, storytelling and ritual, photography and
filmmaking, architecture and writing, library and atlas design. His
kaleidoscopic works investigate many dimensions of the human experience —
seeking universal principles and patterns.

For a good introduction, please watch his Master Talk from the 2017 IDFA Film
Festival in Amsterdam. For updates on new work, please join his newsletters. His
current project is Sunlight — an evolving initiative to energize, clarify, and
illuminate a diversity of timeless wisdom.

Recent
 * Linestone Collective
   Design works
   2024
 * Arts at High Acres Farm
   Reflections
   2023
 * Aeon — From roaring fire and molten glass an artist creates a healing ritual
   Press
   2022
 * In Fragments
   Ritual works
   2022
 * The Stoa — Life Art with Jonathan Harris
   Lectures
   2022

Jump to:
 * Ritual works
 * Documentary works
 * Data works
 * Design works
 * Early works
 * Featured films
 * Featured writing
 * Featured talks
 * Newsletters

Ritual works
Selected explorations in Life Art
 * 2022
   In Fragments
   
   A series of 21 radical rituals to alchemize old family patterns at High Acres
   Farm, documented via 21 short films
 * 2021
   Electric Webb
   
   A ritual to install a new energy grid using a network of 27 lightning
   transformers — part 20 of In Fragments
 * 2021
   See Glass
   
   A ritual to honor the primordial lake with a collection of broken fired
   mirrors — part 19 of In Fragments
 * 2021
   Hexagram
   
   A ritual to disperse the limitations of a pernicious land use agreement —
   part 17 of In Fragments
 * 2021
   Paper Weight
   
   A ritual to clear the burden of my mother’s fearful dreams — part 16 of In
   Fragments
 * 2017
   A Witness To Life
   
   A ritual to honor the closing of the Cowbird digital storytelling community —
   part 18 of In Fragments
 * 2016
   Give Up The Ghost
   
   A ritual to banish the spectre of my grandfather’s alcoholism — part 15 of In
   Fragments
 * 2016
   Phase Change
   
   A ritual to forge homemade glass in a hillside furnace using the cremated
   remains of my mother — part 12 of In Fragments
 * 2016
   Apprenticeship
   
   A ritual to source and prepare the ingredients to forge homemade glass from
   scratch — part 11 of In Fragments
 * 2016
   Make Me A Vessel
   
   A ritual to craft a funeral urn for the cremated remains of my mother — part
   10 of In Fragments
 * 2016
   Space Suit
   
   A ritual to witness the cremation of my mother two days after her death —
   part 9 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Scarecrow
   
   A ritual to rectify patterns of fear using an effigy dressed as my mother —
   part 8 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Hall Of Mirrors
   
   A ritual to arrange a set of broken fired mirrors into a rectangular mosaic —
   part 14 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Use A Hammer
   
   A ritual to shatter and burn the reflections of nine outdated identities —
   part 13 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Equidistant
   
   A ritual to collapse related phenomena into a single plane of perception —
   part 7 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Process Of Elimination
   
   A ritual to examine the particles in a pile of pulverized powder — part 5 of
   In Fragments
 * 2015
   Not A Single Point
   
   A ritual to pulverize a collection of gray and white stones into powder —
   part 4 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   Urim And Thummim
   
   A ritual to utilize a set of gray and white “seeing stones” — part 3 of In
   Fragments
 * 2015
   Linestone
   
   A ritual to align the white veins in a collection of ancient gray stones —
   part 2 of In Fragments
 * 2015
   The Joyous Lake
   
   A ritual to witness the many changing moods of a primordial body of water —
   part 1 of In Fragments

Top
Documentary works
Selected explorations in storytelling
 * 2018
   A Silent Place
   
   A pictographic oracle of rock art images created in the Utah desert — a
   mirrorlike refuge from the Internet cacaphony
 * 2013
   I Love Your Work
   
   A portrait of the realities of those who make fantasies using 10-second video
   clips shot every 10 minutes for 10 days
 * 2011
   Cowbird
   
   A storytelling platform and public library of human experience with nearly
   100,000 searchable stories
 * 2011
   Balloons Of Bhutan
   
   A portrait of happiness in the last Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan — using
   hundreds of brightly colored balloons
 * 2010
   Today
   
   A 443-day practice of making a photo and short story each day — posting them
   online each night before going to sleep
 * 2008
   Polaroid Project
   
   A fractured collage of sexual desire among men and women, created in two
   hours at a live event in New York
 * 2007
   The Whale Hunt
   
   A sequence of 3,214 images timed to match my heartbeat, taken over nine
   consecutive days in Barrow, Alaska
 * 2005
   9/11 Paper Flight
   
   A proposed installation using sheets of white paper, commissioned by the
   Ground Zero Freedom Center

Top
Data works
Selected explorations in data visualization
 * 2015
   Network Effect
   
   An interactive (and satirical) portrait of the psychological effects of
   large-scale Internet use on humanity
 * 2009
   We Feel Fine Book
   
   A book exploring human emotions as understood through Internet data,
   published by Simon & Schuster
 * 2008
   I Want You To Want Me
   
   An interactive portrait of the search for love (and self) through the world
   of online dating, commissioned by MoMA
 * 2007
   Universe
   
   An interactive system for generating new constellations, showing modern
   mythology as deduced from global news
 * 2006
   Yahoo Time Capsule
   
   A time capsule (the world’s largest) whose contents were beamed into space as
   binary code using a laser
 * 2006
   We Feel Fine
   
   An exploration of human emotion through large-scale blog analysis, via six
   interactive movements
 * 2004
   10x10
   
   An interactive mosaic of the pictures and words that define the time, updated
   each hour by analyzing global news
 * 2004
   Wordcount
   
   An interactive visualization of the 88,000 most frequently used English
   words, displayed as a very long sentence

Top
Design works
Selected explorations in architecture and identity design
 * 2024
   Linestone Collective
   
   An insignia for an evolving creative collective emerging from the ritual work
   of In Fragments at High Acres Farm
 * 2020
   The Present
   
   An insignia showing time set free — for a trio of elegant timepieces tracking
   the cyclical rhythms of nature
 * 2020
   Notitia Sanctuary
   
   A place of retreat at High Acres Farm, named for an old Latin word meaning
   the attentive noticing of things as they are
 * 2019
   High Acres Farm
   
   A gathering place in Shelburne, Vermont, evolving out of its long history as
   a private family home
 * 2019
   The Other Farm
   
   An imaginal future vision for the buildings and thousands of acres of land
   surrounding High Acres Farm
 * 2019
   Mosaic
   
   An identity system for a design and construction company inspired by the work
   of Christopher Alexander
 * 2014
   Twenty Seven
   
   An illustrated collection of phenomena related to the number ‘27’ which for
   many years I used as my pen name
 * 2013
   Hill House
   
   A proposed design for a house at High Acres Farm, based on two golden
   rectangles at 27 degree angles to one another

Top
Early works
Selected explorations in painting and drawing
 * 2003
   Sketchbooks
   
   A set of travel journals filled with watercolor paintings, drawings, plants,
   insects, and other ephemera
 * 1998
   Landscapes
   
   A set of 27 traditional plein-air landscape paintings of the Pioneer Valley
   in western Massachusetts
 * 1998
   Drawings
   
   A set of drawings from life made during four years of study at Deerfield
   Academy in western Massachusetts
 * 1979
   Childhood Art
   
   A collection of artwork created in the first fifteen years of my life, much
   of it at St. Bernard’s School in New York City

Top
Featured films
Selected films and trailers
 * 2022
   In Fragments Trailer
   
   A fragmented view of the 21 films that make up In Fragments, with a running
   time of around a minute
 * 2021
   See Glass Film
   
   A short film (8:27) documenting the ritual See Glass — part 19 of In
   Fragments
 * 2021
   Paper Weight Film
   
   A short film (9:45) documenting the ritual Paper Weight — part 16 of In
   Fragments
 * 2021
   Phase Change Film
   
   A short film (12:50) documenting the ritual Phase Change — part 12 of In
   Fragments
 * 2014
   Cowbird Trailer
   
   A brief introduction to Cowbird — presenting a universal life story told
   through 227 individual stories told by the community
 * 2013
   I Love Your Work Trailer
   
   A brief introduction to I Love Your Work — exploring the everyday realities
   of those who make fantasies
 * 2011
   Today Film
   
   A reflection on Today, discussing the 443-day practice of taking a photo and
   writing a short story each day
 * 2008
   I Want You To Want Me Trailer
   
   A brief introduction to I Want You To Want Me, exploring the search for love
   and self in the world of online dating

Top
Featured writing
Selected essays and posts from Today
 * 2022
   Working With Life
   
   An essay exploring the embodied practice of Life Art via the origin story of
   In Fragments
 * 2017
   Powers Of Ten
   
   An essay exploring ten non-fiction works that shaped my way of seeing,
   commissioned by the IDFA Film Festival
 * 2014
   Navigating Stuckness
   
   An essay exploring the lessons learned from creative block — commissioned by
   Transom for their Manifesto series
 * 2012
   Modern Medicine
   
   An essay exploring the ways in which software is becoming a new kind of drug,
   with proposals for a corresponding ethics
 * 2010
   A Modern View
   
   July 2, 2010
 * 2010
   Something We Have Here
   
   June 25, 2010
 * 2010
   I Used To See You
   
   April 12, 2010
 * 2010
   Walkabout
   
   January 16, 2010

Top
Featured talks
Selected presentations
 * 2022
   Stoa Talk
   
   A conversation on The Stoa exploring the anatomy of ritual and the concept of
   ‘Life Art’ by way of In Fragments
 * 2018
   National Geographic Talk
   
   A presentation at National Geographic in Washington, D.C. about data,
   storytelling, and ritual
 * 2017
   IDFA Master Talk
   
   A presentation in the beautiful Tuschinski Theatre at IDFA in Amsterdam,
   exploring 15 years of life and work
 * 2007
   TED Talk
   
   A presentation at TED exploring data-based storytelling projects We Feel
   Fine, Yahoo Time Capsule, and Universe

Top
Newsletters
Updates on new work and occasional reflections
For updates on new work and occasional reflections, please join the newsletters:

Top
The work of Jonathan Harris — artist, technologist, student of life
Contacts
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© 1979–2024 Jonathan Harris