James Clar was born in 1979 in Wisconsin, USA.
Lives and works in Tokyo and New York. After studying telecommunications, film and animation at New York University, he began experimenting with light and television. He developed his own visual systems, transforming screen pixels into sculptures. His work is based on the purpose of "digitising" human, socio-cultural, and political conditions. In this way, he analyses and observes the effects of media and technology in modifying human behaviour and society, with a focus on our perception of culture, nationality, and identity. For Freefall v9, Clar uses coloured light filters to conjure the form of a rising figure across the wall. Borrowing from the visual language of animation and comic books, he has used radiant lines of LED light to emphasise the sense of speed and motion of the figure, perhaps in an emergent or transformational moment.