Michael O'Rourke is Professor Emeritus of Digital Art at Pratt Institute. where he was the senior professor of the Department of Digital Art for thirty-three years. He was hired as the Department's first full-time professor in 1987 to help found the M.F.A. degree program and developed and pilot-taught many of the early courses in that program, including all the 3D courses. At Pratt he taught a wide variety of courses, including digital imaging, animation, storytelling, and Thesis.
Retired from Pratt in 2020, he now does volunteer teaching in digital imaging and animation as well as in traditional drawing at several local venues and schools in western Massachusetts.
Prof. O'Rourke's early artwork focused on sculpture and drawing. While doing his M.F.A. at the University of Pennsylvania he produced the world's first interactive virtual digital sculptures between 1979 and 1982. For several years thereafter, he created abstract 3D computer animation. His current artwork focuses on handmade artist books, digital imaging, and paper sculpture. He has also produced interactive and multimedia murals and sculpture.
His artwork has been exhibited internationally, including such venues as: the Hong Gah Museum (Taipei, Taiwan), the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Wash., D.C.), the Tibor de Nagy Gallery (NY, NY), Uma Gallery (NY, NY), and many others.
Prof. O'Rourke has written extensively on many aspects of computer art and animation. He authored several historically important articles on the uses of computer technology for the design and fabrication of sculpture. In addition to using digital technology for his own artwork, he also producded several series of works for the artist, Frank Stella. In 1995 he published Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer Animation (W.W. Norton), which was translated into three languages and printed in three editions. He also authored an online set of over 200 command-by-command tutorials for the Maya software package.
Prof. O'Rourke has lectured widely and internationally on computer art and computer animation, and has given invited lectures at such venues as: Yale University, New York University, numerous universities in Korea and Taiwan, several international animation festivals, the ISEA Conference (Rotterdam, Holland), the Museum of Modern Art of Tampere (Finland), SIGGRAPH conferences, and many others.
Prof. O'Rourke's first teaching experience was as a Peace Corps volunteer in Birkina-Faso, French West Africa. He later completed an Ed.M. degree at Harvard University and taught Kindergarten and first grade for five years at the Shipley School outside of Philadelphia. He also taught conversational French for the U.S. Peace Corps. His M.F.A. degree is from the Univ. of Pennsylvania in Sculpture.
