Media poetics,
and culture research

I’m a media artist and scholar of semiotics and behaviour, working across creative industries in London, UK.

Media & Studio Arts

I'm the the author of numerous artist books and my art has been featured/ published/ exhibited in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, New York, Vienna, and London.

In 2017 I co-founded the London-based multidisciplinary studio project Very Tender in Hackney, where I work as a media artist. I’m the former Director of the Steel Bananas Art Collective in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada (2008-2018), where I was an art publisher and multidisciplinary artist.

My practice straddles the boundaries between poetics and media, manifesting in artist books, films, performances, and zine-making. I hold a PhD in media semiotics and, as my primary practice, my work emerges from a preoccupation with text and book-making.

Socio-Cultural Research

My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as New Media and Society, and Routledge encyclopedias and anthologies. I currently conduct research on culture, behaviour, and semiotics as Associate Director of Social Science at Canvas8, a global culture research and behavioural insights practice. As part on my ongoing research, I write a weekly column for Forbes.com on cultural insights and human behaviour.

I studied for my PhD in media poetics and semiotics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and completed my post-doctoral fellowship in organisational behaviour at the University of Leeds in the UK. My research centres on constructions of power and identity in technology and the semiotics of fine art and popular culture.

Studio Contact

hello [at] verytender [dot] org

Research Contact

karen [at] canvas8 [dot] com

Front Page

𝔎𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔫 𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔞 𝔡𝔞 𝔰𝔦𝔩𝔳𝔞

I’m a media artist + scholar of semiotics and behaviour, working across creative industries in London, UK.

𝔎𝔞𝔯𝔢𝔫
𝔠𝔬𝔯𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔞
𝔡𝔞
𝔰𝔦𝔩𝔳𝔞