Digital Equity and Inclusion: Arts Help to Understand How We Matter

Get a behind the scenes look at the Art && Code podcast series. In this wrap-up episode, AMT Lab’s Podcast Producer Jabrenee Hussie, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Ashley Offman, and Lead Researcher Hannah Brainard discuss key takeaways from the series. They look back at some of their favorite interview moments, from ethics of artificial intelligence as an artistic tool to the social scene of live-coding. 

The Art && Code Series, in partnership with the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, featured seven artists working in live visual performance, immersive design, and software development. Artists included Zoe Sandoval, Matthew Ragan, Kate Sicchio, Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo, Char Stiles, Olivia Jack and David Lublin.

In the fifth episode of the Art&&Code podcast series AMT Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard, talks with David Lublin, a video artist, programmer, and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Lublin is the co-owner of VIDVOX, a software company specializing in tools for real-time video mixing. In this podcast, they discuss the field of video instrumentalism, or ‘VJing,’ and how Lublin’s unique background as a mathematician and artist helped carve a path for his career. Since first checking out equipment at his university library, the pursuit of advancing his own artistic output has helped Lublin develop tools for fellow artists. Looking ahead, Lublin anticipates myriad opportunities for emerging technology in the field, including enhanced experience and audience connectedness through immersive augmented and virtual reality

Olivia Jack is a programmer and artist who works frequently with open-source software, cartography, live coding, and experimental interfaces. In this episode of the Art && Code Podcast series, Jack talks with AMT Lab Lead Researcher Hannah Brainard about Hydra, a browser-based open source software she developed for live-coding visuals. With a background in computer engineering, Jack was first introduced to the world of live coding in Bogota, Columbia while working primarily as a programmer. Though initially skeptical, she quickly connected with the community and found that watching artists think through the creative process helped shift her approach to software development.

Beyond Hydra, Jack’s research interests include algorithmic representations of uncertainty and chaos, peer2peer networking, and live coding as a way to enter into a continuous dialogue or feedback loop between herself and her computer. 

In the third episode of the Art&&Code podcast series AMT Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard, talks with Char Stiles, a computational artist, educator and programmer based in Brooklyn, NY. Stiles works creatively in the lower levels of graphical computational systems and is currently at the MIT Media Lab’s Future Sketches group.

In this podcast, Stiles talks about how her background in painting introduced her to the world of live visuals. While enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, Stiles picked up gigs as a VJ and has since gone on to perform internationally, including festivals such as Electric Forest, and Mutek Nexus. Additionally, Stiles shared about the importance of working collaboratively in the creative process through groups like Livecode.nyc and Hex House. Stiles dives into her current and recent work with galactic algorithms and extending live-coding visuals into augmented reality spaces.

For the second episode of AMT Lab’s Art && Code series, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator Ashley Offman talks with Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo and Dr. Kate Sicchio, two-thirds of the live coding trio known as Codie. 

Sarah and Kate discuss how their prior experiences in academia and at tech giants influence the art they create. They also talk of their interdisciplinary approaches to performance, including the integration of coding in live performance, as well as the nuances and differences that exist in the live coding and DIY sound scenes worldwide. Sarah and Kate discuss the performative nature of the live coding scene and how, in this discipline, the code is the show's star. The trio uplifts the beauty and importance of making errors in live coding and the creative process at large, highlighting the potential for innovation and education. 

AMTLab Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard talks with Zoey Sandoval and Matthew Ragan, the creators of SudoMagic, a design and software development studio, which focuses on immersive experiences.

In this podcast, Sandoval and Ragan share how their respective backgrounds in filmmaking and performance have set them up for careers in immersive design. After meeting at a conference for Art & Technology in 2015, the collaborators combined their talents to form the design studio 2020 and work with companies such as Meta, Apple, T-Mobile, and Dell as they reimagined their physical spaces. Sandoval and Ragan discuss TouchDesigner and other software and hardware used to create these experiences. Diving into the creative process, storytelling and participatory design are recurring elements in their work, including recent projects Calaveras (This is Not a Sugar Skull) , and Lumisphere Experience. While artificial intelligence and machine learning have been tools in their artistic practice, Sandvol and Ragan offer predictions and ethical concerns around how these models may be trained and implemented in the future.

AMT Lead Researcher, Hannah Brainard talks with David Lublin, a video artist, programmer, and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. Lublin is the co-owner of VIDVOX, a software company specializing in tools for real-time video mixing. In this podcast, they discuss the field of video instrumentalism, or ‘VJing,’ and how Lublin’s unique background as a mathematician and artist helped carve a path for his career. Since first checking out equipment at his university library, the pursuit of advancing his own artistic output has helped Lublin develop tools for fellow artists. Looking ahead, Lublin anticipates myriad opportunities for emerging technology in the field, including enhanced experience and audience connectedness through immersive augmented and virtual reality.

AMT Lab Chief Editor, Samantha Sonnet, and Garrett Brooks, Creative Director of MAS, discuss all things experiential marketing. With over 10 years in experiential marketing, Garrett has been a part of projects for clients such as YouTube, Google, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, LinkedIn, Bacardi and Pepsi and has activated executions at cultural touch points like the Super Bowl, CES, and SXSW.

AMT Lab Chief Editor, Samantha Sonnet, and Executive Director, Brett Crawford, discuss the current Google antitrust lawsuit and potential social media alternatives for arts organizations looking to expand their outreach and platform participation. 

In this episode of our Let’s Talk podcast, host Natalie Larsen talks with Lauren Miller about the intersection of technology and the digital ecosystem with diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI) in the arts for digital making and linguistic representation.