Dan Sandin

Biography

As an artist, inventor and educator, Dan Sandin is a pioneering figure in the field of electronic visualization. Sandin, who came to video and computers in the 1970s with a background in physics, was instrumental in the development of imaging devices that could be made accessible to artists for their own duplication and use. In 1973 he built the Sandin Image Processor (I.P.), a synthesizer that electronically alters video images and explores the dynamics of color. He continues to work with computer graphics and holographic systems. He is recognized, with EVL co-director Tom DeFanti, for conceiving the CAVE virtual reality theater in 1991.

Sandin was born in 1942. He received a B.S. in physics from Shimer College, Wisconsin, and an M.S. in physics from the University of Wisconsin. In 1969, Sandin joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois, Chicago. In 1980, he became founder and co-director, with Thomas DeFanti, of an interdisciplinary program in electronic visualization at the University of Illinois and the Art Institute of Chicago. Among his awards are fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Sandin lives in Chicago.