Where curiosity becomes craft, and students become explorers
Teaching, for me, has never been about transmission—about pouring knowledge from one vessel into another. It is about creating conditions for discovery, for transformation, for the moment when a student suddenly sees the world differently.
For over twenty-five years, I have worked at the intersection of art, technology, and pedagogy, always asking: How do we teach people to see what they've learned not to notice? How do we make technology not a barrier but a bridge? How do we create spaces where mistakes become portals and questions matter more than answers?
From founding the New Media Lab at Iceland University of the Arts to teaching mathematics to fifth graders, my practice has remained the same: to invite others into wonder, to make the complex feel approachable, to remember that every expert was once a beginner and every tool was once mysterious.
In 1999, I founded the New Media Lab at what was then the Iceland Academy of the Arts. It was a space of possibility—a laboratory where dancers learned Max/MSP, where visual artists built sensors, where the boundaries between disciplines dissolved in favor of curiosity.
For nearly a decade, I taught across departments: Fine Art, Theatre, Dance, and Design. The curriculum was less about mastering software and more about cultivating a sensibility—learning to think in systems, to work with feedback loops, to treat technology as material rather than magic.
Working across disciplines taught me that the best learning happens at edges and intersections. A dancer approaching code brings a somatic intelligence that transforms how they think about time and sequence. A visual artist working with sensors begins to see space as responsive, alive with invisible conversations.
My role was never to be the expert imposing solutions, but the guide holding space for experimentation—creating environments where students felt safe to fail spectacularly, to ask "what if," to follow their curiosity into unknown territory.
This philosophy extends to my current work teaching elementary students. Mathematics, when approached with care, is not about memorization but about pattern recognition, about seeing the hidden structures that organize our world. Social studies becomes an exploration of how humans have always been storytellers, mapmakers, meaning-makers.
Whether I'm teaching a fifth grader about fractions or a graduate student about interactive systems, the principle remains: education is not preparation for life but life itself, unfolding in real time, full of surprise.
Teaching real-time media processing, sensor integration, and generative systems—helping students think in patches, flows, and feedback.
From video synthesis to data visualization—exploring how technology shapes perception and how artists can shape technology.
Working with sensors, microcontrollers, and responsive environments—making the invisible tangible, the abstract physical.
Situating technical skills within artistic and philosophical contexts—learning not just what tools do but why they matter.
I believe that teaching is fundamentally an act of generosity. It is saying to another person: "I once stood where you are standing. Let me show you some paths forward, but the journey will be yours."
The best teaching happens when the teacher is also learning—when the exchange is genuinely reciprocal, when students challenge assumptions, when their fresh eyes reveal what familiarity has made invisible.
In workshops, I create structures but welcome chaos. I offer frameworks knowing they will be bent, broken, and remade. I encourage students to pursue what excites them, even when it veers from the plan, because genuine learning always follows the energy of curiosity.
Teaching is my practice of staying awake to the world—of remembering that every technology, every technique, every way of seeing was once new to me too, and that beginner's mind is not something to outgrow but to cultivate.