Jim Campbell

Jim Campbell (born 1956 in Chicago, Illinois) is a contemporary San Francisco based artist who is known for his LED light works.

Born in Chicago in 1956, Jim Campbell moved to San Francisco after earning a B.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in electrical engineering and mathematics in 1978.

In the mid 1980s, Campbell shifted from filmmaking to interactive video installations, establishing LEDs as his primary medium in 2000.

A trailblazer in computer technology as art form, Campbell explores the distinctions of human "knowledge" and mathematical "data" through his LED grids of pixilated representations.

Campbell's work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and other notable museums.

Campbell's work is part of numerous public collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Campbell began his artistic career in film making but switched to electronic sculpture in 1990 and started making his iconic LED matrix works in 2000.

His current work combines film, sound, and LED light installations.

In the fall of 2010, Campbell's work, "Scattered Light" was installed in the Madison Square Park Conservancy in Manhattan making it the largest and most extensive public art piece of his to date.

Hundreds of hovering tiny lights made up a large-scale, three-dimensional public installation.

His installation, "Day for Night", at the top of Salesforce Tower debuted 21 May 2018, making it the tallest artwork on earth.