About Simon Tarr

In my work, regardless of medium, my ultimate goal is to reveal invisible structures of the universe.
Small and easy to overlook. Vast and nebulous to perceive.

After viewing one (or all) of my pieces, I want you to feel as though you are waking from a dream. You might not be able to explain each part, and you might not be able to know why it unfolded the way it did. But you wake with a distinct feeling of a memory or an experience that washed over you, filled your senses, and left you wondering. The most important part of the experience is the path you take to make sense of what has been set before you.

Simon Tarr is an artist, researcher, and educator in South Carolina. He made his first movie at the age of eight using a strip of film fashioned from sandwich bags taped together, with spaceships drawn on it. The projector was a shoebox with a lamp in it, the lens was a magnifying glass on the end of a toilet paper tube. The movie premiered on the wall of his bedroom, where the film melted after a few seconds.

In addition to his films that have been screened in hundreds of film festivals on every continent (yes, even Antarctica), he creates live video shows and immersive environments that he has performed at Carnegie Hall, LaMaMa and around the world from Tokyo to Cairo. His work is available on DVD from Netflix and Amazon. 

Dr. Tarr is a Professor of media arts at the University of South Carolina where he is the coordinator of the Media Arts degree programs in the School of Visual Art and Design. He is the founding Faculty Principal of the Rhodos Fellows Learning Community for Information, Design, and Computing. He received the 2010 University Film and Video Association Teaching Award for achievements in pedagogy that contribute to the field of film and video education.

About Quark Nova

Quark Nova is an art studio and production company in Columbia South Carolina, owned by Simon Tarr. It's where all his own artwork is made, and it's also where Simon and his minions do other gigs... interface/UX creation, projections design, site-specific media, and other strange mis-uses of screens. Quark Nova also creates the long-running tutorial series One From Zero.


Shows, Talks, and Commissions

Interested in having me do a live performance, screening, master class, new commission, keynote or something more? Got a question? Just saying hi? Cool.

Just fill this out to email me what you're thinking about. If you like I can put you in contact with some past venues if you'd like to know if it's worth it to have me do my thing.

(Hint: it is.)

Name *