Darrin Martin was born in New York and is currently based in San Francisco. Through video, sculpture, and print-based installations, his works engage the synesthetic qualities of perception. Concerned with what is gained and lost in the process of translation as mediated by both old and new technologies and influenced by his own experiences with hearing loss, his current projects consider notions of accessibility through the use of tactility, sonic analogies, and audio descriptions. His videos have screened internationally at festivals and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY); Pacific Film Archive (CA), Impakt Festival (Netherlands), and European Media Art Festival (Germany). His installations have exhibited at venues including The Kitchen (NY), University of Toronto (Canada), and Grand Central Art Center (CA). In 2015, he held solo exhibitions at Aggregate Space Gallery (CA), Art Space on Main (CA), and Art & Design Gallery (KS).

Martin also frequently collaborates with artist Torsten Zenas Burns, building diverse speculative fictions around re-imagined educational practices and dystopian cosplay paradigms. Their works have been included in screenings and exhibitions in venues including The Oberhausen Short Film Festival (Germany), The Paris/Berlin International, Eyebeam (NY), and Dumbo Arts Center (NY). More recently they have exhibited two variations of ARK 3 at Alfred University (NY) and Krowswork Gallery (CA). In early 2017, they mounted ARK 3: Crossover at Hobert William Smith College (NY), which has also exhibited outside of its sculptural context as a three screen media installation at Zhangzhou Art Museum (China).

Martin received his art degrees with an emphasis on video and sculpture from Alfred University’s School of Art and Design (BFA) and new media and installation at University of California, San Diego (MFA). He has held artist residencies at Cite Internationale des Arts, Eyebeam, Experimental Television Center, and Signal Culture. Martin also occasionally curates exhibitions and video screenings. Most recently, he co-curated the Photography and Video Retrospective of Recology Artist in Residence exhibition at SF Camerawork. He is a Professor of Art at University of California, Davis.