米高‧兰迪1963年生于伦敦，1981年就读于拉夫堡艺术学院，其后于1985至88年就读伦敦金匠学院。1988年参与同学达明安‧赫斯特策划的艺术展览「凝」，成为名噪一时的「英国青年艺术家」其中一员。
2001年，兰迪创作了他最著名的作品《分解》，以探讨社会与消费主义之间暧昧微妙的关系。在伦敦牛津街一间废弃的商店里，一队为数十一人、穿上蓝色工作服的助理员，在大约两星期里有系统地将兰迪的所有财物，分门别类后销毁，其中包括他的汽车和出生证书。他的所有财物共7,227项，全部被放置在店内的百米长运输带上拆解为小件，最后被压扁辗碎，装进垃圾袋里。这行动不仅展示了兰迪的财产被销毁，更表现了一个人在失去所有财产后的起伏情绪，及重新投入生活的过程中情感的重整。钢笔画《分解》(2002)是兰迪在整个行动过后，凭记忆把当时的情景仔细地描绘出来的。
兰迪为了1995年的作品《废料服务》成立了一间公司，声言为社会去除「渣滓」，所谓「渣滓」，即那些在经济上被边缘化及缺乏生产力的人，犹如消费社会中的多余副产品。在两年多的时间里，兰迪为这虚设的公司精心设计制服、标志以及设备。一部「秃鹰」号巨型人形切碎机成了这大型装置作品的核心，可以从丢弃的饮品罐裁出数以百万计的小人形铝片。部份废料被放进红色塑料袋保存，成为另一件作品，名为《我们喜欢你讨厌的工作》(1995)。
兰迪在英国本土和海外广泛展出。近期个展计有：「艺术垃圾箱」(南伦敦画廊，2010)；「欢乐机器」(泰特利物浦美术馆，2009)；「米高‧兰迪：半独立」(泰特英国美术馆，伦敦，2004)。他亦曾参与影响深远的联展，包括有「感觉：萨奇英国青年艺术家藏品」展(皇家美术学院，伦敦，1997)；「闪耀！伦敦新艺术」（沃尔克艺术中心，明尼阿坡里斯；当代艺术博物馆，休斯顿，1995）；「东郊庭院展」(伦敦，1990)；「凝」(伦敦，1988)。
Michael Landy was born in 1963 in London. He studied at Loughborough College of Art in 1981 before attending Goldsmiths College, London from 1985 to 1988. Landy became part of the infamous Young British Artist set following his participation in the group exhibition Freeze, curated by fellow student Damien Hirst in 1988.
In 2001, Landy produced his best known work Break Down in which he examined society’s romance with consumerism. Over the duration of two weeks in a disused shop on Oxford Street, London, a team of eleven blue-overall clad assistants systematically catalogued then destroyed Landy’s entire possessions, ranging from his car to his birth certificate. In total, 7,227 items of his belongings were placed on a 100 metre long conveyor belt within the shop and then dismantled to their component parts. Finally, they were either crushed or granulated and placed into refuse sacks. Thus the project not only involved the breakdown of Landy’s possessions, but also the emotional breakdown of how a person can begin his life again having lost every material possession. Break Down (2002), is a pen and ink drawing in which Landy retrospectively recorded the experience in the minutest of detail.
For his work of 1995 Scrapheap Services, Landy created a company which promised to rid society of “scum” — the economically marginalised and non-productive — as if they were simply one more unwanted by-product of the consumer society. Over a two-year period, Landy meticulously created the uniforms, logos and equipment for his fictitious company. The large-scale installation that resulted centred on the gigantic Vulture people-shredder, which slowly reduced to minute pieces the millions of tiny figures, laboriously cut out of salvaged drinks cans. Some of the scraps from Michael Landy's installation Scrapheap Services are preserved in the red plastic sack entitled We Love the Jobs You Hate (1995).
Landy has exhibited extensively both in the UK and abroad including recent solo exhibitions Art Bin at South London Gallery, 2010; Joyous Machines at Tate Liverpool, 2009 and Michael Landy: Semi-detached at Tate Britain, London, 2004. His work was also seen in seminal group exhibitions such as Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection at Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1997; Brilliant! New Art from Britain, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1995; East Country Yard Show, London, 1990 and Freeze, London, 1988.