What To Expect From Rhizome’s ‘Seven On Seven’ Conference At The New Museum
By Something CuratedA collaboration between Rhizome and the New Museum, bringing together practitioners in art and technology, this year’s Seven on Seven symposium unites leaders in both fields to explore wide-ranging topics. On 27 April, the seven paired artists and technologists will explore issues like the aesthetics of high frequency treading, the school-to-prison pipeline, languages of the deep future and more.
Rhizome is an organisation supporting born-digital art and culture, and a long-time affiliate of the New Museum. As the only museum in New York City devoted solely to contemporary art, the New Museum is the perfect host for this innovative conference. The 2019 Seven on Seven programme is co-organised by Artistic Director Michael Connor, Executive Director Zachary Kaplan, and Assistant Curator Aria Dean. Seven artists are paired with seven technologists and asked to make something, whether it be an artwork, a prototype, an application or whatever they may choose to create.
“Seven on Seven endures because its distinctive format provokes deep engagement with the art and tech ideas of our moment among both fields’ leaders,” Zachary Kaplan explains to Something Curated. “This year’s cohort will engage many fields previously unexplored in this flagship programme—we can’t wait to see what they create.”
A wide variety of fields of expertise will be represented in this conference, spanning experts in artificial intelligence, crypto networks and linguistics. Trevor McFedries, one of the speakers, is the co-founder of Brud, the company behind virtual Instagram influencer Lil Miquela. Laura Welcher, another technology expert featured in the event, is a linguist for Long Now Foundation, a non-profit aiming to promote long-term thinking and responsibility.
American Artist, known for their work revealing the historical dynamics embedded within contemporary culture and technology, is one of the selected artists. Rachel Rose is another of the seven talented artists—her body of work is guided by research into subjects like cryogenics, modernist architecture, 19th century design, and a wide span of other matters dealing with the question of what makes us human.
“Participants in this year’s edition of Seven on Seven are embracing new strategies for addressing some of the great challenges in society,” notes Rhizome’s artistic director Michael Connor. “Their projects strive for new kinds of synthesis, whether it’s of nature and technology, or old knowledge and new technique.”
During the conference, visitors can also view The Art Happens Here: Net Art’s Archival Poetics, drawn from Rhizome’s major online exhibition exploring net art history and showcasing a variety of forms from websites to software and merchandise. A free simulcast presentation of the Seven on Seven event will be presented in the New Museum’s Sky Room. Find tickets to the conference here.
See the full list of participants below:
- Artist Rachel Rose & Kirstin Petersen, Founder, Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab, Cornell
- Artist Matthew Angelo Harrison & Trevor McFedries, Cofounder, Brud
- Artist Sarah Meyohas & Tarun Chitra, Founder, Gauntlet
- Artist Hayal Pozanti & Laura Welcher, Linguist, Long Now Foundation
- Artist American Artist & Rashida Richardson, Director of Policy Research, AI Now
- Artist Artie Vierkant & James La Marre, Developer and Activist
- Artist Qiu Zhijie & He Xiaodong, Deputy Managing Director, JD AI
Words by Sara Frazier | Feature image: Rachel Rose, Lake Valley, 2016, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice (May 13 – November 26, 2017). Courtesy of the artist, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York and Pilar Corrias Gallery, London. Photo: Andrea Rossetti.