Semiconductor (also Semiconductor Films) is UK artist duo Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. They have been working together for nearly twenty years producing visually and intellectually engaging moving image works which explore the material nature of our world and how we experience it through the lens of science and technology, questioning how these devices mediate our experiences. Their unique approach has won them many awards, commissions and prestigious fellowships including; SónarPLANTA 2016 commission, Collide @ CERN Ars Electronica Award 2015, Jerwood Open Forest 2015 and Samsung Art + Prize 2012. Exhibitions and screenings include; The Universe and Art, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2016; Infosphere, ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2016; Quantum of Disorder, Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, 2015; Da Vinci: Shaping the Future, ArtScience Museum, Singapore, 2014; Let There Be Light, House of Electronic Arts, Basel 2013 (solo show); Field Conditions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2012; International Film Festival Rotterdam, 2012; New York Film Festival: Views from the Avant Garde, 2012; European Media Art Festival, 2012; Worlds in the Making, FACT, Liverpool 2011 (solo show); Earth; Art of a Changing World, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2009 and Sundance Film Festival, 2009.
Ruth Jarman (born 1973) and Joe Gerhardt (b. 1972) started making art as Semiconductor in 1999. Their art uses computer animation to explore science, time, scale, and natural forces.They work in different media ranging from single and multichannel video works, sound, installations, performance and DVD releases. They are currently based in Brighton U.K. They have completed a number of fellowships and residencies at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland; The Smithsonian Institution at The National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC, USA; Gulbenkian Galapagos Artists Residency; Exploratorium, San Francisco, USA; The NASA Space Sciences Laboratories UC Berkeley California USA; Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship Berwick-Upon-Tweed UK and Couvent des Récollets Paris.
They have performed and exhibited at Venice Biennale, Hirshhorn Museum Smithsonian Institution Washington DC USA, Nuit Blanche Paris, Institute of Contemporary Arts London, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Prague Contemporary Art Festival, Careof Gallery Milan, EMAF Osnabruck, and Beaconsfield Gallery London.