Digital Art, Architecture and the Body is part of our contemporary reflections series The Art of Living: Bodily Experiences of Space, Curated by Kristen J. Owens

The Art of Living: Bodily Experiences of Space is a four-part contemporary reflections series organized in conjunction with the exhibition Eileen Gray and inspired by the ways in which Gray’s architectural and interior designs were created with the individual’s bodily experience of the space in mind.

Digital Art, Architecture, and the Body brings together four artists,(Alredo Salazar-Caro, Ashley Baccus-Clark, Jacolby Sattewhite and Ari Melenciano) who work at the intersections of digital art, architecture, neuroscience and technology. During this conversation, they will discuss their work and its relationship to architecture, the artistic possibilities of virtual reality as a form of digital architecture, as well as their predictions for architecture’s future relationship to technology.

Other Conversations in the series include:

Saturday, March 28
Blackness and Spatial Matters: A Performance Lecture
With Mario Gooden, Jonathan Gonzalez and Mabel O. Wilson.

Thursday, April 9
Queer Histories in Architecture
With Mariel Villeré and JD Sassaman

Thursday, June 11
Designing Social/Cultural Spaces
Speakers to be announced.

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Meet the Speakers

Alfredo Salazar-Caro is a creator living/working between Mexico City, NYC, and Online. His works is an amalgamation of portraiture, installation/sculpture, documentary, video and VR/AR. Salazar-Caro is co-creator and creative director of DiMoDA, The Digital Museum of Digital Art. DiMoDA is a groundbreaking project that functions as a VR institution and exhibition platform dedicated to the development of XR Art. His work has been exhibited internationally. Exhibitions include : Tribeca Film Festival, Dreamlands at the Whitney Museum, The Wrong Biennale in São Paulo, Brazil, New Normal Beirut/Istanbul, Die Ungerahmte Welt, HeK, Basel Switzerland, Siggraph Asia, Bangkok, Thailand and 1Mes1Artista Mexico City among others. His work can be seen in publications such as Leonardo, Cultured Magazine, Vice Magazine and Creators Project.

Ashley Baccus-Clark is a Berlin-based Molecular & Cellular Biologist and multidisciplinary artist who uses new media and storytelling to explore themes of deep learning, cognition, memory, race, trauma, and systems of belief. She currently consults in virtual reality production and is working on her first feature. Ash is currently represented by Mssng Peces, is an Ida Ely Rubin Artist in Residence at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology, an RLabs XR Beta Resident, and a 2019 United States Artist fellow in Media. In her work with Hyphen-Labs, Ash served as the Director of Brand Marketing & Research, writing and producing an award-winning immersive installation project, NeuroSpeculative AfroFeminism (NSAF), a three-part digital narrative that sits at the intersection of product design, virtual reality, and neuroscience that was originally inspired by the lack of multidimensional representations of Black women in technology. NSAF incorporates object-based design, virtual reality, and cognitive impact research that reimagines the future of Black women in STEM fields.

Ari Melenciano is a Brooklyn-based artist, designer, creative technologist, researcher, and futurist, who is passionate about exploring the relationships between various forms of design and the human experience. Ari is the founder of Afrotectopia, a social institution fostering interdisciplinary innovation at the intersections of art, design, technology, Black culture and activism. Afrotectopia is most commonly experienced via their annual New Media Arts, Culture and Technology Festival. She is currently teaches technology, society and design at New York University and the Pratt Institute. Ari is continuing her research as an NYU Interactive Telecommunications Graduate Program Fellow and an inaugural NYU Future Imagination Fund Fellow. She is incubating her electromedia art practice through technology residencies at Pioneer Works and Culture Hub, and as an Experiments in Arts and Technology track member at New Inc in partnership with Rhizome and Nokia Bell Labs. Ari is also a consultant for NYC’s Department of Education, helping to build STEAM curriculum that is culturally relevant.

Jacolby Satterwhite is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses video, performance, 3D animation, drawing, fibers and printmaking to explore themes of memory, desire, and personal and public mythology. In his video works, Satterwhite creates fantastical digital landscapes populated with multiple, costumed avatars of himself, engaging with hand-drawn objects and text as extensions of the body, in a seamless exchange between live performance and constructed worlds. Satterwhite’s computer-generated realms—densely layered with proliferating drawings, objects and performances—encompass animated narratives of personal memory and identity. Satterwhite was born in 1986. He was a featured artist in the 2014 Whitney Biennial and his work has recently been included in the following exhibitions: Sundance Film Festival (2014), How Lovely is Me Being As I Am, OHWOW Gallery, Los Angeles (2014), Step and Repeat, MOCA, Los Angeles (2014), Radical Presence, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2014), The House of Patricia Satterwhite, Mallorca Landings, Mallorca (2013); The Matriarch’s Rhapsody, Monya Rowe Gallery, New York (2013); Approximately Infinite Universe, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2013); AIM Biennial, Bronx Museum, (2013); Radical Presence, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2012-13); 3-D Form: Aboveground Animation, The New Museum, New York (2012); Park Side of the Moon, Socrates Sculpture Park, (2012); If Theres No Dancing At The Revolution I’m Not Coming, Recess Activities, New York (2011); Weerrq!, MoMA P.S.1, Queens (2010); and multiple exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Satterwhite is a recipient of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the Art Matters grant. His works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, and Studio Museum in Harlem, among others. Satterwhite lives in New York.