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Lila Lee-Morrison

Associate Professor Adjunct

Lila Lee-Morrison is a visual culture and art history scholar and writer with research interests at the intersection of computational machine vision, image theory, and power relations of the gaze. Her research addresses specific case studies of machine vision technologies through analyses of their aesthetics, operational contexts, computational processes and image outputs. These case studies have included environmental monitoring platforms, automated facial recognition technology and drone warfare systems, examining the ways these technologies reconfigure modes of visual perception and intervene in socio-political and cultural forms of meaning. Her research is conducted through an interdisciplinary lens engaging with discourse in the fields of art history, media theory, philosophy of science, critical theory and environmental humanities.

Her current research examines the aesthetics of technical images generated by planetary-scale environmental monitoring technologies. She explores the epistemic role of earth observation and environmental data in shaping and visualizing non-human entanglements within a framework of discourses on the Anthropocene, planetarity, and colonial constructions of landscape. Her research has been supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant, a European Research Council Grant (ERC) and the Danish Independent Research Fund (DFF).

Lee-Morrison received a B.A in Political Science from Hunter College and a M.A and a Ph.D in Art History and Visual Culture Studies from Lund University in Sweden. She has written for Artforum, Theory, Culture & Society and been published by MIT Press, Liverpool University Press and Oro Editions. 

Lee-Morrison's CV is available here. 

  • 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.