sssMichael Just (born 1979, Frankfurt/Main, Germany) is a transdisciplinary artist, founder of Michael Just Office & Studio, Berlin, and PhD candidate at the City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media. In 2024, he was a guest researcher at TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, as CityUHK Research Activities Fund Fellow. He is also a Steering Team member at DigitalFUTURES where he co-organises the Doctoral Consortium Series on Architecture & Philosophy, Artificial Intelligence and Ecologies of Artistic Practice. He was on the board of the Mark Cousins Theory Award (2023/2024). Michael Just holds MFA degrees from both the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (Prof. Daniel Buren) and Goldsmiths, University of London and participated in the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program in New York City. Recent teaching includes the China Academy of Art, School of Design and Innovation (2020), City University of Hong Kong, School of Creative Media (2021-24), and Hong Kong Baptist University, Academy of Visual Arts (2024). Michael Just is a contributor to the Erasmus+ Project “SUrF – Speculative Urban Futures” with TU Delft.

He was a DAAD Postgraduate Fellow (2007/2008) and a recipient of the EHF-Fellowship, Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation (2007/2008). Residencies include the Palazzo delle Arti Napoli (2010), Villa Aurora Los Angeles (2012), Dongcheng District Beijing (2017), the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2018), 16×16, Lagos (2020) and the Agder Center for Contemporary Art, Kristiansand (2021). He was the recipient of the Deutsche Bank Prize for Emerging Sculptors (2005) as well as several project grants from the DAAD, Incontri Internazionale D’Arte, the J.F. Costopoulos Foundation, the Goethe-Institut Seoul, the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, Kunstfonds Bonn, Senat Berlin, IFA – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the City University of Hong Kong.

His work is held in international collections and has been shown in institutions around the world such as Garash Galeria Mexico DF (2004), Avenirs de Villes, Nancy (2005), the MRAC Sérignan (2005, 2006 and 2019), Benaki Museum Athens (2005), Domaine Pommery Reims (2007), KIT – Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf (2008), Cornerhouse Manchester and A Foundation London, Bloomberg Newcontemporaries (2009), Palazzo delle Arti Napoli (2010), Artisanal House New York City (2013), Eigen+Art Lab Berlin (2014), Cydonia Gallery Dallas (2015), Deutsche Bank KunstHalle Berlin (2015), Peppermint Holding Berlin (2016), Dongcheng District Beijing (2017), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul (2018), Luxelakes A4 Museum Chengdu (2020), Narbo Via (2023), TU Delft (2025) and Palazzo Mora, Venice Architecture Biennale (2025) . He has lectured, presented and participated in panel discussions internationally such as at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Goldsmiths University of London, Accademia di Belle Arti Napoli, Art Center College of Design Pasadena, University of Texas Dallas, Booker T High School Dallas, Accademia di Belle Arti Roma, Goethe-Institut Beijing, MMCA Seoul, Goethe-Institut Glasgow, the Luxelakes A4 Museum Chengdu, the China Academy of Art, City University of Hong Kong, DigitalFUTURES and Mike Levin’s Academic Content. Curatorial projects include the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Changdong (2018).

Michael Just has presented at academic conferences such as Global Green Media Network, Hong Kong Baptist University (2022), DACA – Data Art for Climate Action, CityU Hong Kong (2022), IV City and Philosophy Congress, Cracow (2024), From Mainland to Islands, Zhouqian Art Community and Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts (2024), and SIGraDi 2024, Barcelona (2024). Workshop presentations and participation include Artificial Intelligence Autumn Session, Goethe-Institut Glasgow (2019), Beyond Smart Cities, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab and HK Innovation Node (2022), CAMP Notes on Education, Shared Campus “Commoning Curatorial and Artistic Education” at documenta fifteen (2022).

Michael Just works mainly in installation, time- and process-based, discursive and intersubjective projects with an emphasis on the convergence of physical and digital media. A particular focus lies on the intersections of art and architecture, urbanism, design, science and technology. His practice operates as a transdisciplinary, post-anthropocentric and new-materialist inquiry in which artistic research is both method and medium. Collaborating with architects, designers, scientists and technologists, he develops propositional, transformative projects that examine the conditions and infrastructures for coexistence. Current investigations engage artificial intelligence, generative systems and 3D worlds alongside fieldwork and fabrication, working at the thresholds between biological and technological processes as well as physical and digital space. A spatial practice of sensing and acting, his work examines how diverse intelligence appears across unconventional embodiments, and how art and design can render such intelligences legible as partners in thought and action. In this view, space is plural and enacted rather than confined to human-centric model, and is navigated differently by different forms of cognition.