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Joel Swanson is an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado 51´«Ã½'s ATLAS Institute, where he teaches design, creative coding, and typography for the Creative Technology and Design program (formerly TAM). He served as TAM program director from 2007 to 2016, holds tenure in the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics and Society, and maintains a courtesy appointment in the Intermedia Arts Writing and Performance PhD Program.

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As director of the TYPO Lab, Swanson leads experimental investigations into the boundaries of text-based technologies. He holds an MFA from UC San Diego in Computing and the Arts and a BFA in Digital Art from CU 51´«Ã½.

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His interdisciplinary practice explores the complex relationships between language, materiality, and technology through text-based sculpture and meticulously crafted works on paper. Swanson investigates how linguistic tools and technologies subtly but profoundly shape meaning, employing a methodology of queering and querying language that operates both conceptually and formally to disrupt conventional systems of meaning and representation.

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Swanson's work has received international recognition through exhibitions at the MSU Broad Art Museum, the Power Plant in Toronto, Ireland's Glucksman Museum, and the 57th Venice Biennale (official satellite exhibition). Notable achievements include a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, artist residencies at La Napoule Art Foundation, HANGAR - Centro de Investigação Artística, the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, and RedLine Contemporary Art Center. He is a Black Cube Nomadic Art Museum Fellow, and his work appears in the Electronic Literature Organization's 4th Anthology.