Julian Oliver is a Critical Engineer, educator, artist, archer, and activist. His work and lectures have been presented at many conferences, museums, festivals and international electronic-art events including Transmediale, the Chaos Computer Congress, Ars Electronica, Tate Modern, FILE, The Vienna Biennale, and the Japan Media Arts Festival. Julian has received several awards, most notably the distinguished Golden Nica at Prix Ars Electronica 2011 for the project Newstweek (with Daniil Vasiliev). He is the co-author of the Critical Engineering Manifesto, member of the Critical Engineering Working Group, and co-founder of Crypto Party in Berlin, who’s shared studio Weise7 hosted the first three crypto-parties (unrelated to cryptocurrency) worldwide.
Julian has given numerous workshops and master classes in data forensics, creative hacking, computer networking, counter-surveillance, software art, object-oriented programming, radio, UNIX/Linux, (and previously) augmented reality, virtual architecture, video-game development and information visualisation worldwide.
ACTIVISM
He is an advocate of Free and Open Source Software and is a supporter of, and contributor to, initiatives that reinforce rights of privacy and anonymity in networked and non-networked domains.
Julian has often donated his time and experience in these areas to the support of activist initiatives and at risk groups worldwide, with a particular focus on protecting environmental defenders from the surveillance of corporations and statecraft.
In his home country of Aotearoa New Zealand he is actively engaged in volunteer rainforest conservation and restoration efforts.
CONSULTANCY
In 2022 his partner and he launched Nīkau, a global platform, information and operations security consultancy in service to NGOs, impact-driven organisations and grassroots movements.
PRESS
Articles about Julian’s work, or work he’s made with others, have appeared in many news channels. Among them are The BBC (UK), The Age (AU), Der Spiegel (DE), El Pais (ES), Liberation (FR), The New York Times (US), La Vanguardia (ES), The Guardian Online (UK), Cosmopolitan (US), Wired (DE, US, UK), Slashdot (US), Boing Boing (US), Computer World (World) and several television stations worldwide.
OTHER
Since 1997 Julian has lived in Australia, Sweden, Spain, Denmark and Germany, with months at a time in many other countries. He currently lives in Aotearoa / New Zealand, his country of birth.
CONTACT
You can reach Julian here.
