Patricio Gonzalez Vivo (b. 1982, Buenos Aires) is a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersection of painting, computation, and symbolic systems. His practice centers on the creation of artifacts of perception, tools, images, and experiences that translate between the measurable and the ineffable. Through these works, he explores how we construct meaning, memory, and presence across material and digital domains.
Trained initially in clinical psychology and expressive arts therapy, Gonzalez Vivo’s early engagement with inner experience continues to inform his artistic language. In 2012, he relocated to the United States to pursue an MFA in Design & Technology at Parsons School of Design, where his focus shifted toward the development of computational and perceptual systems as artistic media.
His body of work spans paintings, generative systems, interactive installations, and symbolic interfaces; ranging from machine-assisted portraiture and real-time cosmological visualizations to pedagogical artifacts such as tarot-based coding decks. Across these forms, his work reflects a sustained inquiry into perception as both a technical and poetic act: how images are constructed, how consciousness is mediated, and how reality is continually reinterpreted through tools.
A defining aspect of his practice is tool-making. Patricio develops and releases open-source libraries and platforms that extend the possibilities of digital art, positioning software itself as both medium and infrastructure. His widely influential Book of Shaders has become a foundational resource for artists working with real-time graphics, while tools such as GlslViewer, glslCanvas and glslPipeline -and libraries such as Lygia, Vera, Berthe, and Hypatia are used globally as instruments for creative exploration. For the artist, this open dissemination is not ancillary but integral, a form of shared authorship and cultural contribution.
His work has been exhibited and presented internationally at platforms such as EYEO, Resonate, GROW, FILE, Espacio Fundación Telefónica, BrightMoments, FlyingTokyo, DotDotDot and FASE. He has delivered talks and lectures at institutions including the MIT Media Lab, Carnegie Mellon University, Frank-Ratche Studio for Creative Inquiry and Politecnico di Milano. He has taught at Parsons School of Design, ITP NYU, SFPC (School for Poetic Computation), and the Instituto Universitario Nacional de Arte in Argentina.
Across mediums and contexts, his practice proposes a contemporary synthesis: where code and gesture, machine, and hand, analysis, and intuition converge, offering new ways of seeing, and new conditions for experience.
2025 Solar Biennale, at Museum of Contemporary Design, Switzerland
2025 NetGala, New York City
2024 Projecto Curatorial Museo Ernesto de la Cárcova, Buenos Aires
2023 Bright Moments
2020 BienalBit
2017 Historia de un malentendido at Espacio Pla, Buenos Aires
2017 Temporal Topologies show at IFP, New York City
2015 +CODE, Buenos Aires
2014 SCOPE Arts Show, New York City
2013 CLOUDS
2013 FILE Festival, Rio de Janeiro
2012 FASE, Buenos Aires
2012 FILE Festival, São Paulo
2012 TEDxTenaris, Buenos Aires
2024 Jen Lowe and Patricio González Vivo on Democratizing Knowledge by Le Random
2015 Look up! Interactive map reveals the satellites and space junk soaring above your head right now at DailyMail
2015 This Map Tracks the Satellites Whizzing Over Your House at The Atlantic CityLab
2015 Line of Sight: What are the satellite in your line of sight? at GeoAwesomeness
2015 Un site pour voir la position des satellites en temps réel at JournalDuGeek
2015 This Map Shows The Creepy Satellites Passing Above Your Home In Real Time at FossBytes
2015 Find Your House On This Map and Watch the Satellites Passing Above You at Gizmodo
2015 Line of Sight at Prosthetic Knowledge
2015 Santiago y otras 20 ciudades del mundo en 3D at PlataformaUrbana
2015 Take a little trip with this 3D map of New York City at TheRealDeal
2015 Let This 3D Map of New York City Hypnotize You at DNAinfo
2015 A Mesmerizing 3-D Vision of New York as Pure Data at The Atlantic, CityLab
2015 This Brooding Cityscape is What Google Maps Dreamt about last night at Fast Company Design
2015 Tilt-Ikeda at Prosthetic Knowledge
2015 Interactive Maps Can Now Get the ‘Matrix’ Treatment at The Atlantic, CityLab
2015 A Mesmerizing, Futuristic Map With Animated Traffic and Glowing Buildings at The Atlantic: CityLab
2015 The Book of Shader on Hacker News and Reddit
2015 TANGRAM: AN OPEN SOURCE MAP RENDERING LIBRARY at RaspberryPI official Blog
2014 Esplorando una città fantasma fatta di codici e dati at WIRED Itally
2014 Depth Maps Hidden in Google Street View Create Flickering Ghost-Cities at Gizmodo
2014 Point Cloud City at Prosthetic Knowledge
2012 FILE 2012 apresenta ‘Efecto Mariposa’, instalação de Patricio González Vivo at TechnoArteNews
2012 Mesas interactivas, simuladores y juego at Conectar Igualdad