James Nanasca

Adjunct Instructor

James Nanasca is a computational designer, fabricator, and artist based in New York. He holds a Master of Architecture from Pratt Institute, and his practice sits at the intersection of robotics, advanced fabrication, and contemplative experience.

He is the founder of STILL MACHINES, a studio developing kinetic installations that induce meditative states through geometric precision and robotic fabrication. Working across industrial technology, holography, and perceptual experience, the studio produces machines engineered to create their own opposite: systems of motion that result in stillness, presence, and reflection. This work spans large-scale installation, furniture, and objects, driven by a commitment to fabrication intelligence and material rigor.

James teaches design and fabrication seminars at Columbia University GSAPP and The Cooper Union. He also serves as fabrication lab director at GSAPP, overseeing advanced making environments and production methodologies across CNC machining, additive manufacturing, and custom robotic workflows. Previously, he served as Director of Design Technologies at New Bedford Research and Robotics, where he developed expertise in robotic fabrication, mixed reality, and immersive systems.

His current research centers on the relationship between machine behavior, bodily attention, and perceptual experience, exploring what it means when a system moves not to produce an object, but to produce a state.

 

A collaborative installation at Newlab Detroit exploring human-robot interaction through a 24 x 10 ft generative LED wall. LIDAR scans of the city and 3D scans of visitors merge into a living data-field, manipulated in real time by both human and robotic arm. In collaboration with Dot Dot Dash and New Bedford Research and Robotics.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.