Faculty Directory

John Marshall's practice and research focuses on a discipline-agnostic, collaborative approach to designing and making that recognizes the boundaries of the problem being addressed, not the artificial boundaries of traditionally-defined disciplinary practice. In 1998, he co-founded rootoftwo – a hybrid art and design studio.

rootoftwo's work derives from interest and observations related to how context informs and transforms behavior, interactions and relationships. rootoftwo work through a process of researching issues, materials, and technologies. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the studio has presented work in Australia, Brazil, China, Denmark, Japan, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Marshall regularly serves on the advisory boards and programming committees of conferences related to the intersection of art, design and technology. Marshall was a juror for the 2012 Art Papers a collaboration between ACM SIGGRAPH and Leonardo/ISAST. Marshall also was a member of the curatorial committee for the Siggraph Art Gallery exhibition 'BioLogic: A Natural History of Digital Life' in New Orleans, 2009. He co-curated the art, design and technology exhibition 'Perimeters, Boundaries and Borders' in Lancaster, UK, 2006. He is also a co-initiator of v1b3, an international curatorial project that presents video art in the built environment.

From 1999-2003 Marshall worked as part of a collaborative product development team at consumer baby products manufacturer Evenflo Company, Inc. During this time Marshall was instrumental in transitioning the company to a rapid prototyping-based product development process.

Marshall received a B.A. (Hons) from Glasgow School of Art; an M.F.A. from Ohio State University; an M.A. from Manchester Metropolitan University; and a Ph.D. from Robert Gordon University.