Cooperative Studies
Scaling Utopia
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. Musician, vocalist, and producer KeiyaA references the traditions of jazz, R&B, hip-hop, and various other genres in her performance, using live production and instrumentation to create new sounds in real time.
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.
In partnership with Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, our Cooperative Studies track explores community and worker-centered cooperative models for governing, funding, planning, and collective ownership. Following presentations by Duty Free, Gabriella Nelson, Jamica El, Mahx Capacity, Molly Ragan, the Trackâs Mentor-in-Residence Caroline Woolard 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.
Council Member Chi OssĂŠ delivers his keynote in alignment with the principles of our Cooperative Studies Track. In this keynote, OssĂŠ will share knowledge on envisioning new structures that center collectivity and applying such principles to local work relevant to his background in activism, community organizing, and focus on implementing innovative and human-centered solutions in solving New Yorkâs housing crisis.
This presentation offers visitors pathways to envisioning alternative presents and futures beyond the constraints of the economic, scientific, and sacred systems that defineâand limitâour lives, thoughts, movements, and interactions.
In place of static solutions or declarations, the presenting artists offer open-ended prompts, asking viewers to reconsider both their individual power and complicities. Scaling Utopia offers the opportunity for transformation that can be activated beyond the walls of the exhibition. Seemingly incontrovertible ideas are parsed into tangible exercises and experiences. Transactions can become predicated on care, rest, and fulfillment. Scientific advancements rest on the shoulders of nonconsensual procedures. Workers can be excluded from banks, museums, and more based on puritanical ideas of propriety. Mentors can be summoned and embodied to understand the past, present, and future.Â
Within this moment of respite and reflection, consider:
- What choices are made for you as a result of the commodification of your basic needs?
- What concessions in comfort and dignity have you been asked to make as a result of your access to resources?
- Does your (dis)comfort dictate the rules of this space? If so, should those be personal or communal choices?
- Who would you be if your basic needs were recognized and met?
- What will revolution feel like in your body?
In the wake of collapsing systems and impendingâor ongoingâapocalypse, this presentation is a toolbox for new worlds premised on cooperation, mutual respect, resource sharing, and solidarity economies.
These artists have scaled theory into practice, rendering the concepts that define our lives accessible through interactivity, sensation, and awareness. Direct your focus to those who have been forced to the fringes to understand how you will navigate life beyond for-profit structures. Through these artworks, interrogate your participation in, or rejection of, the sacred, capitalism, medical racism, whorephobia, and scarcity. Beyond this exhibition, use these prompts to opt into, or out of, systems that do not serve your vision for the world in which you hope to live.
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.
Our Cooperative Studies track explores community-and-worker-centered cooperative models for governing, funding, planning, and collective ownership. Artists, designers, and technologists in this cohort offer visions for untangling systems-level challenges and applying solidarity structures to building collective power and exploring the future of work, housing, community financing, cultural infrastructure and more.
Featuring Work From: