Heidi Kumao is an interdisciplinary artist who creates video and machine art to explore ordinary social interactions and their psychological undercurrents. Emerging from the intersection of sculpture, theater and engineering, her “performative technologies” generate artistic spectacle in order to visualize the unseen: psychological states, emotions, compulsions, thinking patterns, and dreams. These works are designed to re-enact an event, perform a task for the viewer, or mediate her roles as a woman.  Through the creation of kinetic and electronic sculpture, interactive installations and digital animations, she seeks to heighten awareness of our everyday experiences such as childhood play, family dynamics, television news, and even the wearing of clothes.

She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in group and solo exhibitions including one-person exhibitions at the Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, and Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco.  Group exhibitions include “ZeroOne San Jose and ISEA 2006: A global Festival of Art on the Edge” in San Jose, California, “Brides of Frankenstein” at the San Jose Museum of Art, and shows at the National Academy Museum (NYC), Galeria Vermelho (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Exit Art (NYC), and the International Center for Photography (NYC).

She has received numerous grants and fellowships for her work including grants from New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the Creative Capital Foundation which funded “Misbehaving: Media Machines Act Out,” a series of three female, hybrid, machine “performers.”

She is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where she teaches animation, video, experimental television production, and electronic and conceptual art.   For 2007-08, she has been awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation.