Evan Roth

Evan Roth is a designer & media artist deeply rooted in the realm of graffiti, open source development, and popular culture. Born March 5th, 1978 in Okemos, Michigan, Roth developed his ambitions as an artist early on. By the time he graduated from the University of Maryland he received B.S. degree in architecture. After graduating he moved to Washington, D.C. for two years to work as an "autoCAD monkey".

Soon he traveled back to New York to get his MFA from Parsons The New School, graduating valedictorian. While in school he began to hone his craft, developing projects under the name "fi5e", namely Typographic Illustration, Explicit Content Only, Graffiti Taxonomy.

After he graduated he worked on open source projects at the Eyebeam OpenLab for about two years. Open source technology is a method of development that bares the "goods and knowledge" of a product to the public, specifically its inner workings and how it was created. This is done most notably with software development and even some hardware development as well.

One would assume, given Roth's dedication to open source and graffiti, that the designer's motives were certainly that of raw, personal freedom. This came together most prominently when he collaborated with OpenLab fellowship co-worker James Powderly and formed the Graffiti Research Lab in 2005. The GRL was designated to be an art group dedicated to supporting graffiti artists and protestors in combination with open source technology to be utilized in urban communication. Much of the projects led by GRL were documented on video as well as accompanying instructions for viewers to take on the same projects for themselves.

One of most notable projects was the invention of "LED Throwies", which were small LED lights used for the purpose of non-destructive, graffiti-based light displays. Another great achievement was a project entitled "L.A.S.E.R. Tag", which was a system set up that allowed for graffiti writers to non-destructively tag (or write on) the side of a building via a projector and laser pointer.

In 2007 he helped form the Free Art and Technology Lab, which describes itself as "an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media". The projects done by the collective are often in relation to sociopolitical statements. One project entitled "China Channel Firefox Add-On" allows you to surf the internet from an IP address located in China; many sites, such as ones containing information about Tienanmen Square, are blocked off and your connection is terminated for 10-15 minutes. Projects such as these signify the new technological movement that designers such as Evan Roth are leading with regards to graffiti and political statements.

Today Evan Roth lives in Hong Kong with his wife's work is posted on his own personal website, www.evan-roth.com, which details just about all of his work since the beginning of his career. He currently teaches at Parsons The New School for Design, specficially courses on visual programming, internet fame, even "geek graffiti", a course that has come under fire from anti-graffiti city council member Peter Vallone, Jr. Roth's work still continues on as usual, just completing a video for Jay-Z's latest single "Brooklyn (We Go Hard)", an open-source video that displays typographic illustrations of rappers Jay-Z and the Notorious B.I.G. using only the word "Brooklyn". The video has been a great success, just like much of Roth's portfolio as a designer, artist, and political activist.