Sean Bonner
American technologist, community organizer, and artist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sean Bonner is an American technologist, community organizer, and artist whose work spans media art, citizen science, civic technology, and online publishing.[1][2][3] He is a co-founder of the environmental monitoring organization Safecast, which was formed after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.[2][4][5] He was a Shuttleworth Foundation Fellow from 2014 to 2017, working on open environmental sensing tools.[6][7]
Early life
Bonner was born in Washington, D.C.[1] He has lived and worked in Los Angeles and Tokyo.
Career
Art spaces and media art
Bonner co-ran the art gallery Sixspace with Caryn Coleman, first in Chicago and later in Los Angeles.[8][9] Los Angeles Times coverage identified Bonner and Coleman as the owners of Sixspace, including in connection with the exhibition Sent: America's First Phonecam Art Show.[10]
In December 2007, Bonner was an artist in residence at MuseumsQuartier in Vienna through the Q21 program in the field of media art, invited by art group monochrom.[11]
Bonner was also part of the art and music collective Cross My Heart Hope To Die, which was featured in the 2014 exhibition Vita E Morte at Subliminal Projects.[12][13]
Bonner worked as art director for punk label Victory Records, and Shepard Fairey credited him with designing the packaging for Bad Brains' Omega Sessions.[14][15]
Blogging and online media
Bonner co-founded Blogging.la, a Los Angeles-focused group blog launched with Jason DeFillippo in 2003. The site later expanded into the Metroblogging city-blog network.[8][1][9] He was also a contributing editor to Boing Boing.[16]
Safecast and citizen science
After the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Bonner co-founded Safecast with Pieter Franken and Joi Ito.[2][4][5] The organization became known for its citizen-generated environmental radiation data and later expanded into other forms of environmental sensing.[2][5] Bonner's Shuttleworth fellowship supported the development of open sensing tools connected to this work.[6][7]
Hackerspaces and public events
Bonner was a co-founder of Crash Space, a Los Angeles hackerspace.[17][3] He also participated in Roboexotica in Vienna, giving a 2007 talk at the Roboexotica symposium Geist in der Maschine at MuseumsQuartier Wien.[18]
He appeared in the documentary Traceroute (2016), directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner.[19]
Recent work
Bonner was a contributor to the 2024 book CryptoPunks: Free to Claim, published by Phaidon Press.[20]