0:04

what i remember is being able to wildly

0:07

experiment

0:09

it was a real um

0:11

sort of moment of being able to

0:14

invent

0:15

make and be cared for

0:18

[Music]

0:27

the way that artists think about the

0:29

world is the kind of thinking that we

0:31

need as a culture

0:33

if we are to create a different and more

0:36

humane relationship to these tools the

0:38

organization in many ways is

0:42

both a direct support mechanism for

0:44

artists as well as being a platform and

0:48

a resource i’ve had access to

0:52

people to run ideas through

0:54

i really needed

0:56

to problem solve

1:01

this idea of what does it mean to undo

1:04

these sort of architectures of

1:06

inhumanity

1:08

so when i landed into architecture

1:11

elmina

1:12

and extraction

1:15

within

1:16

um and on

1:18

you know oceans as a superhighway

1:21

in ships

1:23

in halls of ships as a different kind of

1:25

architecture

1:26

than the trade

1:28

you know then the harvesting and

1:31

uh

1:32

exploitation and dispossession of people

1:33

of color

1:35

and then i

1:36

worked my way to liberation

1:39

it was this totally raw just this crazy

1:42

laboratory the amount of information and

1:46

resources that people were sharing the

1:48

way people were making things and you

1:50

saw the

1:51

the seeds of projects

1:53

i think my challenge as an artist has

1:55

been to try to take this thing which i

1:57

you know i also love coding and i love

1:59

just generative form but i want it to

2:01

feel like painting

2:08

alumni like taeyun choi

2:10

um you know who

2:11

came out of ibm at the same time as me

2:14

we had that connection and we wanted to

2:15

create a space like that

2:17

a place where people could come and have

2:20

experience the sort of magic that we

2:22

were feeling at i-beam but in uh

2:24

educational context

2:28

i’ve been focused on finding as many

2:30

ways as possible

2:31

to connect people to climate change and

2:34

issues that i would call multi-species

2:36

ethics

2:37

and what it means to live on this planet

2:40

i’ve been driven by

2:42

a pretty ridiculous quest to nudge the

2:44

needle a tiny bit to the side to open up

2:47

some kind of space where humans are not

2:48

the absolute center of everything

2:51

both of my residencies at ibm were

2:52

opportunities to

2:55

try out

2:56

a bunch of different things the projects

2:59

that were incubated ibm in 2009 was the

3:02

first of what became a long series of

3:04

projects that i would describe as these

3:07

landscape pageants

3:09

everything is coexisting and it’s

3:12

software driven animation

3:14

our response to the major up evil in the

3:17

world was to essentially just rethink

3:20

what our role could be in a moment of

3:23

chaos and transition we saw an

3:25

opportunity to

3:27

bring in

3:29

a highly

3:31

engaged group of artists and to bring

3:33

them together to think about a

3:35

relationship to a digitally mediated

3:37

world

3:39

i am deliberate and afraid of nothing

3:41

serious i was thinking a lot about that

3:44

kind of um eerie connection between

3:47

black americans and robots because when

3:50

black americans came to this country

3:51

were completely

3:53

disembodied

3:54

we were seen as objects

3:56

and we didn’t have any kind of humanity

4:02

i made a performance with a virtual

4:04

environment of a sugar mill to tell the

4:06

story of of my family and also to show

4:10

how us as african descendants we have

4:13

transcended even the hardest injustices

4:16

[Music]

4:22

the ways in which artists enable the

4:24

rest of us to imagine a different future

4:28

if we look back and say

4:31

the way that we used to organize

4:33

condition craft direct ourselves

4:36

has led us to this point of loss

4:39

how must we rearrange

4:41

[Music]

4:44

but the way to come through loss is

4:46

invention

4:49

[Music]

4:50

one of the most exciting initiatives

4:51

that we’ve had the opportunity to launch

4:53

at ibeam is the ibm center for the

4:55

future of journalism

4:58

one of our artists that we worked with

5:00

last year on a project in collaboration

5:02

with buzzfeed news

5:04

actually won a pulitzer prize

5:06

for the creative approach that they took

5:08

to telling a very complex story

5:12

[Music]

5:14

we’re building on a young adventurous

5:16

legacy as we’ve transformed into a

5:19

digital first distributed catalyst and

5:22

incubator

5:24

[Music]

5:26

there’s a window of opportunity for

5:27

artists to actually help us think

5:30

through our relationship with this world

5:32

that we’re entering

5:34

and it’s important that we do that now

5:38

[Music]

5:47

you