DuKode Studio is a Brooklyn-based creative team emerging from the partnership of Ilias Koen and Arlene Ducao. They focus on inventively transposing data into both virtual and physical representations. A recipient of the MIT Ida Green Fellowship, Ducao is currently pursuing her Master’s in the MIT Media Lab’s Information Ecology group. Koen is a member of the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and the Greenwich House Pottery Studio, and holds a BFA from the Athens School of Fine Art in Greece.
DuKode has collaborated with non-profits, think tanks, artists, educational publishers, pop stars, government agencies, scientists, and sociologists. Their current project, the MindRider helmet, uses a helmet with EEG sensors and a mobile connection to map the most stressful areas of a rider’s journey. In 2011, DuKode and programmer Rachel Mersky worked with Slought and its collaborators to code the online presence for Fairytale Project.
About Collaborators:
Ar Ducao (they/zey) is a new media artist, engineer, organizer and educator. They are the founder of The Great Tit is a Bird, an animated sci-fi series. Ducao’s 3D animations and visualizations have been shown in venues and festivals around the world, including the Margaret Mead Documentary Festival (US), Reel Sisters of the Diaspora (US), Le Musee di-visioniste (Germany), Salon International de Arte Digital (Cuba), and Lola Screen Children’s Festival (Kenya). Their media work has been honored with the SXSW Community Service Award, the MIT Public Service Center Fellowship, the Best App Ever Award, the Seoul Cycle Design Prize, and the Brave Destiny Film Festival’s Grand Prize, among others. Ducao began their animation career in science visualization for the American Museum of Natural History, and their innovation work has been profiled by the New York Times, MSNBC, WIRED, Discovery Channel, NPR, and many more. They are a past winner of the Science Channel reality show “All American Makers.”
Ducao is also a co-founder and principal at Multimer, a bio-spatial analytics spinoff from MIT Media Lab and National Science Foundation SBIR award winner. A federally-certified EDWOSB (economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business) with patented technology (USPTO# 20200000337), Multimer has worked with marginalized communities in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Ducao is a research affiliate and instructor at MIT, and an adjunct professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, NYU School of Engineering, and the NYU Prison Education Program. Their writing and design has been published in journals including Bright Lights Film Journal, the Journal of Intelligent Buildings, and International Journal of Community Well-being; and books including Data, Architecture, and the Experience of Place and Instrumental Intimacy: EEG Wearables and Neuroscientific Control. Ar Ducao is a member of the Fulbright Specialist Program, recent co-chair of the UAW 9A Human & Civil Rights Council, and technical advisor for the Black maternal health startup Birth By Us.
Ilias Koen (he/him) is DuKode’s Co-Founder and member emeritus, as well as the Co-Founder of Sektor 30, an artist-run workspace in Athens, Greece. He’s interested in technologies and art forms that can enhance visual cognition. Ilias holds a BFA from the Athens School of Fine Arts in Greece, and an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York.