Kate Armstrong (artist)

Kate Armstrong is a Canadian artist, writer and curator with a history of projects focusing on experimental literary practices, networks and public space.

She was born in Calgary, Alberta and attended university at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, at the University of Montpellier, France, The University of Glasgow, Scotland, and at Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has also lived in Tokyo and New York. She resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Her network art projects include PING (2003), Grafik Dynamo (2005), Why Some Dolls Are Bad (2007), and Path (2008).

Armstrong publishes on issues in contemporary art and has a book, Crisis and Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture (Michigan State University Press, 2002).

She founded Upgrade Vancouver in 2003 and has produced over 100 events in the field of art and technology in Vancouver, as well as many international events and exhibitions in connection with Upgrade International, a network operating in 30 cities worldwide. Upgrade Vancouver was the first node in Upgrade International outside New York City.

In 2006, 2007 and 2008 Armstrong convened ArtCamp, an unconference devoted to art, design and media.

In 2008 Armstrong commissioned and curated Tributaries and Text-Fed Streams, a work by J.R. Carpenter, which investigated the formal properties of RSS syndication as a literary form.

Kate Armstrong teaches at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and from 2005-2008 taught at Simon Fraser University in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology in Surrey, British Columbia. She lectures widely, most recently at Tate Britain in mid 2009.