Cat Bluemke (Canada) is a Canadian digital artist working across game design, expanded reality, and performance, based in rural Atlantic Canada. Her practice examines the narratives technologies tell about the places they inhabit and the histories, experiences, and perspectives they leave out. Through playful, site-specific interventions, her work explores the intersections of landscape, labour, and climate.
During her residency, Bluemke will expand her existing research into renewable energy generation for small-scale computing. Drawing on her experience building solar-powered microcomputers, developing video games, and cultivating mycelium, she will create an interactive virtual pet whose well-being depends on the player’s care for its local environment. The project brings together sustainable computing, virtual ecosystems, and interactive play to explore relationships between technology and ecological responsibility.
Recent exhibitions and projects include May Day Mayhem, curated by Paolo Pedercini, at LikeLike Gallery, Pittsburgh (2025); OPEN SYSTEMS 1: OPEN WORLDS, curated by Duncan Bass, at Singapore Art Museum (2023); Video Games? Art and Technology, curated by Manar Abo Touk, at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie (2022); First Look VR: Tough Guy Mountain at Rhizome and the New Museum (2020); and Designer Artist Citizen Site: Exploring Belonging, an official corollary event for the American Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2018).
Bluemke holds an MFA in Design for Emerging Technologies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2018) and a BFA in Drawing and Painting from OCAD University (2016).
Bluemke was born in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, and is currently based in Kjipuktuk/Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
With support from:
Lonti Ebers
Artist’s website
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Please note all artist-in-residence biographies are accurate at the time of their residency. For up-to-date bios please visit the artist’s website.