Art & Code
Random Access Memory
Opening performances are grounding moments within the festival intended to set the tone prior to each showcase. These sessions are delivered by musicians and live performers who are originative in their art. alsoknownasrox and maya will debut a unique collaborative performance for the first time at DEMO2024, blending the live coding and programming of the former with the DJing and mixing of the latter.
Our NEW INC member cohort consists of 5 unique Tracks or focus areas guided by a Mentor-in-Residence: Art & Code, Cooperative Studies, Creative Science, Social Architecture, and XR (Extended Realities). At the core of DEMO, members share their individual projects during Track Talks which are followed by a group conversation moderated by the Track Mentor-in-Residence.
Hosted in partnership with Rhizome, our Art & Code track explores how creative practitioners experiment with computational techniques, computers, and the digital sphere to develop new and unique methods of artmaking, art presentation, distribution, and digital preservation. Following presentations by Babette Thomas, Chia Amisola, Elekhlekha, Maya Man, and Ruby Thelot, the Trackâs Mentor-in-Residence Eileen Isagon Skyers will moderate a group discussion.
DEMO2024 Keynote Presentations serve as the meeting point between various disciplines, areas of inquiry, creative practices, generations, and career levels. Our invited speakers share their knowledge to bring further context to the ideas and projects incubated at NEW INC, as well as offer an additional perspective garnered from experience, passion, and illuminating creative work in their own fields.
Artist Ian Cheng will close out our Art & Code programming with a presentation of his past work exploring simulated environments and scenarious with AI agents. Cheng will also share his newly launched company Opponent, which builds animal-level AI agents for kids and families.
Studio DEMO is a broadcast hub run in partnership with independent art publisher Montez Press Radio, inviting our NEW INC alumni and creative community for a series of live talks, demonstrations, couch conversations, panel discussions, DJ sets, performances, and more.
This live conversation will feature Art & Code member Camila Galaz, School For Poetic Computation Co-Director Todd Anderson, and artist Herdimas Anggara. This discussion will center on themes of chaos, glitch, performance, and history in coding and creativity.
Studio DEMO sessions do not require tickets and seating is on a first come, first served basis.
Studio DEMO is a broadcast hub run in partnership with independent art publisher Montez Press Radio, inviting our NEW INC alumni and creative community for a series of live talks, demonstrations, couch conversations, panel discussions, DJ sets, performances, and more.
This session invites NEW INC Art & Code Member RaFia Santana to deliver a stimulating audiovisual performance. Focusing on bright, saturated colors and incorporating pink into her work, Santana uses rhythmic productions, sound, imagery, and audiovisual loops to stimulate energy and attention.
Studio DEMO sessions do not require tickets and seating is on a first come, first served basis.
The environment of the internetis omnipresent. We have made significant strides toward renegotiating the relationship between the âdigitalâ and the âphysicalâ as more or less indistinct spheres. We no longer traverse between them, rather, we inhabit the troubled, messy, multisensory reality of an all-encompassing networked space. While we are aware that the internet now constitutes our reality, we remain uncertain of how that reality will come to affect us. On the occasion of DEMO2024, NEW INC is pleased to present Random Access Memory.This exhibition brings together a group of artists from NEW INCâs Art & Code track whose interdisciplinary practices span video, live coding, performance, and interactive media. The exhibition borrows its title from the well-known computing term abbreviated in the acronym âRAM,â which denotes the temporary storage and retrieval of data. This operates as a metaphor for the way individuals now access their own thoughts and memoriesâfrequently, abruptly, and often mediated by digital devices. The artists draw from topics as diverse as fragrance notes, displacement, air traffic control signals, and ancient Chinese guardians. Chia Amisolaâs browser-based piece looks at themes of memory, decay, rebellion, and liberation on the Filipino internet through an online exhibition that unfolds through pop-ups, loops, and iFrames across scattered websites. elekhlekhaŕ¸ŕ¸ľŕšŕ¸Ťŕ¸Ľŕ¸°ŕšŕ¸ŕ¸Ľŕ¸°ŕ¸ŕ¸Ľŕ¸° expands upon their ongoing ensemble work, Jitrŕ¸ŕ¸´ŕ¸ŕ¸Ł, in an audiovisual installation. Rooted in the communal nature of Southeast Asian indigenous practices, the work overlays distinct sounds and voices across an array of interconnected speakers. Banyi Huangâs multimedia altar installation includes both narrative and media archives, featuring materials that influenced the sketch and design of the 3D characters QianliyanĺčŁĄçź (Thousand-Mile Eye), é 風čłShunfengâer (Wind-Following Ear), and Mazu. Maya Manâs Notes is a generative art installation that remixes found language from perfume reviews on the web-based fragrance encyclopedia, fragrantica, into a unique visual output. Dan Goerlick presents an immersive soundscape of audio merged with live radio feeds from air traffic control towers. Lauren Lee McCarthyâs Saliva Lounge challenges the norm of exchanging our fluid substances with external agents, looking at data privacy, consent, and the intimacy of our own bodies as they relate to the systems around us. Babette Thomas presents West Oakland: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, a virtual walking tour of West Oakland offered from the perspective of their father, who grew up unhoused in these neighborhoods in the 1960s and 70s.
Each of these installations, objects, and time-based media works opens a portal that allows us to enter the uncanny. Recontextualizing our relationship with the digital through the sensorial experiences of sound, touch, and scent, this exhibition invites us to reflect on the multiple feeds we encounter, the impermanence of digital memory, and the fragmented recollection that this continuous loop can produce.
About the Track:
Our NEW INC member cohort consists of 5 unique Tracks or focus areas guided by a Mentor-in-Residence: Art & Code, Cooperative Studies, Creative Science, Social Architecture, and XR (Extended Realities). Annually, our members are invited to contribute to a group showcase demonstrating the Trackâs guiding questions. These exhibitions are curated and produced by invited guests.
In partnership with Rhizome, our Art & Code track explores how creative practitioners work with computational techniques and the digital sphere to develop new and unique methods of artmaking, art presentation, distribution, and digital preservation.
Featuring Work From: