Rate My Professor Erik Deerly

Erik Deerly is Professor of New Media, Art, and Technology and Chair of the Department of New Media, Art, and Technology at Indiana University Kokomo, a position he has held since the department's founding through the merger of fine arts and new media communication programs. He joined the IU Kokomo faculty in 2011 and received promotion to full professor in 2021. Previously, Deerly served as Professor and Director of the School of Visual Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. His academic background includes a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts and Media from Columbia College Chicago in 2008, a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Northern Illinois University in 1985, and graduate studies in music and film at Northern Illinois University from 1986 to 1987. Deerly is also the founder and managing editor of Burningword Literary Journal.

As an audiovisual artist and composer, Erik Deerly investigates synesthetic experiences propelled by perception and cognition. His multidisciplinary practice spans sound, installation, video, instruction-based art, and extended photography, with solo exhibitions including Erik Deerly: Apophenia at Indiana University Kokomo Downtown Gallery in 2021, Erik Deerly: Exo Resonance at the same venue in 2019, Dysmorphia at CICA Museum in South Korea in 2018, and Terminal Physical Space at Austin Peay State University in 2014. Group exhibitions and screenings encompass VIDEOMEDEJA International New Media Arts Festival in Serbia (2023), Electronic Music Midwest (multiple years), Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition in the United Kingdom (2020), Seoul International Computer Music Festival in South Korea (2021), and Festival Internacional de Cine Animal y Ambiental in Mexico (2024). Key audiovisual works include Planeta Complejo (MUSLAB/Cero Records, 2025), Non Sequitur (Burrdowning Media, 2024), Apophenia (Bridge Art NFP, 2023), A Sense of Place (Arpaviva Recordings, 2022), and earlier releases such as Joshua Tree (Émigré Records, 2002). Awards include Best Animation Short Film and Special Mention Original Score for Apophenia at Five Continents International Film Festival (2021), Winner in Web/New Media category for Apophenia at L’Age d’Or International Arthouse Film Festival (2021), Aesthetica Art Prize Top Eighteen for Dysmorphia (2020), New Frontiers of Creativity and Scholarship Grant from Indiana University (2016), and SXSW First Place National Interactive Design Awards (2002). In 2016, he co-received a grant to study art therapy for young addicts.