Karsten Schmidt, known by the handle Toxi, is a German artist working in computational and generative design. Since 2006 he has run thi.ng, an open-source toolkit for computational design. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Barbican, the Victoria and Albert Museum and MoMA.
Early in his career Schmidt created large-scale commercial art and advertising installations, including work with Universal Studios. By 2006 his generative work was showing internationally: his pieces appeared in “Further Processing” at the Kunstverein Medienturm in Graz, a show curated by Marius Watz that also featured Casey Reas, Lia and Mark Napier. For the 2009 exhibition “Decode: Digital Design Sensations” at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, he created the show's commissioned graphic identity and, with Sascha Pohflepp, co-created the data visualization piece Social Collider. He has led creative coding and Clojure workshops internationally since 2009. Bjørn Staal has called him one of his personal heroes, noting that few people have been as active in writing open-source code and documentation or in running workshops. Robert Hodgin has named him an early influence alongside Casey Reas and Jared Tarbell.
