Damien Henry

Damien Henry is a technologist and creative researcher whose artistic work emerges from a deep well of innovation in the tech industry. He is not a traditional artist by training, but his contributions to art and culture through technology are significant. Henry spent six years as Head of Innovation at the Google Arts & Culture Lab in Paris, where he led a team in applying AI and machine learning to cultural projects. (He notably helped artists and institutions use ML to reimagine everything from dance choreography to historical archives.) Earlier, he was instrumental in the development of Google Cardboard, creating the first prototype for the low-cost VR headset in 2013. With an educational background in signal processing and a career that spans co-founding tech startups (like the audio-focused AudioGaming in 2011), Henry has consistently positioned himself at the nexus of cutting-edge tech and creative exploration.

Since leaving Google, Damien Henry has co-founded a machine learning venture and continued to explore the frontiers of AI creativity. His personal projects often involve training neural networks on unusual data sets to generate art – for instance, teaching an AI to “dream” in the style of passing landscapes, then producing hypnotic, never-ending travel videos. As part of Fellowship’s artist roster, Henry brings a research-driven approach that complements the gallery’s vision: his work asks how emerging technologies can augment human creativity. By bridging engineering and art, he contributes a thoughtful, professional perspective on the possibilities of AI as a medium, emphasizing experimentation, open collaboration, and the poetic potential of algorithms.