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Kate Armstrong is a Vancouver-based writer, artist and curator. She has over 20 years experience in the culture sector with a specific focus on intersections between art and technology. Her interdisciplinary practice is conceptually driven and has included participatory work, video, events in urban space, generative text systems, and experimental narrative forms. Her exhibitions include the Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius, Lithuania), Psy-Geo-Conflux (New York), ISEA 2006/ZeroOne San Jose: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge (San Jose, California), Yerba Buena Centre (San Francisco, California), Prairie Art Gallery (Grande Prairie, Alberta), Akbank Sanat (Istanbul, Turkey).

As a curator she has produced exhibitions, events and publications in contemporary art and technology in Vancouver and internationally. She founded Upgrade Vancouver as part of an international network of art and technology organizations in 30 cities, and was a founder of the Goethe Satellite, an initiative of the Goethe Institut that produced ten exhibitions in Vancouver between 2011-2013. Armstrong was an Artistic Director of the 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA2015), which partnered with 15 galleries and organizations including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the New Media Gallery, and the Museum of Vancouver to present the work of over 150 artists in Vancouver in 2015.

Armstrong is past President of the board of the Western Front (2007-2014). Armstrong has served on many boards including BC Artscape and the New Forms Festival, and is a Trustee at the Vancouver Art Gallery, where she chairs the Acquisitions Committee (2019-present). She participates in the activities of a range of organizations and has acted on juries for SIGGRAPH, the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia, and Creative BC. Armstrong served on the Creative City Strategy External Advisory Committee with the City of Vancouver and as a member of the standing jury for digital art with the Canada Council for the Arts.

She is the founder of Startland, which has raised over 500K to support free training for immigrants and refugees who wish to enter the technology sector, and founded the Shumka Centre for Creative Entrepreneurship at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, which supports emerging artists and designers who want to launch, fund, organize or otherwise actualize ambitious projects across the spectrum of contemporary art and design activities including products, projects, curatorial initiatives, platforms, companies, and organizations.

She has written for P.S.1/MoMa, Blackflash, Fillip, SubTerrain, and the Kootenay School of Writing, contributed to DAMP: Contemporary Vancouver Media Arts (Anvil Press, 2008), and is the editor of Electric Speed (Surrey Art Gallery/New Forms Media Society, 2013) and Art and Disruption (New Forms Press, 2015). She is the author of Crisis & Repetition: Essays on Art and Culture (Michigan State University Press, 2002) in addition to numerous essays. She recently contributed to For Machine Use Only: Contemplations on algorithmic epistemology (&&& c/o The New Centre for Research and Practice, 2016). Other books include Medium (2011), Source Material Everywhere (2011), and Path (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2012). Artworks include Space Video (2012), Why Some Dolls are Bad (2007), Grafik Dynamo (2005), and PING (2003). Armstrong’s works are held in public and private collections including Rhizome, the Rose Goldsen Archive in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University, the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections at York University, the Library of the Printed Web, and the Whitney Museum.

She is the Director of Living Labs at Emily Carr University of Art and Design and is Co-Director of AI Futures for Art + Design .