And, what is required to move us towards a pluralistic commons—a space that might hold our multitudes and their potentials towards shared futures
In the fall of 2025, we announced the 2025/2026 season of programming, a warm, open invitation, Speculating on Plurality prompting artists, technologists and writers to playfully or critically imagine and instigate new frameworks, interventions, or inventions to address what concerns us the most: from state surveillance, the climate, digital fugitivity, the rise of techno feudalism/fascism. The new season of gatherings, making, and togetherness featured a pair of artist conversations at Secret Riso Club in Bushwick, Brooklyn, and will mark a return, for the first time since the onset of the pandemic, to Eyebeam’s nourishing and supportive physical residency in New York City.
In the fall, Eyebeam opened this series with Urgent Inquiries, two evenings of community-centered Eyebeam alum artist conversations inviting practitioners whose works incite us to imagine or instigate new frameworks, interventions, or inventions to address questions that concern us the most, bringing us to present Speculating on Plurality to our community. Urgent Inquiries brought our alumni community together to initiate an active dialogue that gets us to explore the conditions of artists, technologists, and communities play in responding to and shaping some of the most urgent issues in our society.
To coincide with the launch of the events at Secret Riso Club, we invited practitioners and supporters in the Eyebeam community, to join our discord server. For folks across the globe and unable to join any in-person conversations, we are hoping to continue the stream of critical thoughts and responses on our Discord community. We open our server to keep us all engaging (asynchronously) in conversations about frameworks, interventions, or inventions that move us to challenge the existing system of state surveillance, techno-feudalism/fascism, and censorial repression that is prevalent in and out of our digital spaces.
Timeline
Through this 12-week project-based residency program designed for emerging artists in the first decade of their career, Eyebeam encourages artists to consider the rapid development of new technologies and their near compulsory integration into our lives which mediate our relationships with ourselves, with each other and the world around us. In an era when we are more digitally connected and algorithms and data feels as influential as geography in determining what and how we experience the world, can we share realities or a future?
This 2026 Eyebeam Residency will invite emerging artists based in New York (5 boroughs) to apply whose work and thinking act as catalysts in defining our paths ahead and aligns with the theme Speculating on Plurality. This residency will support emerging artists (see eligibility below) seeking to further develop work in progress. Residents will not be required to complete any work during the residency, but rather, share in the process with each other and Eyebeam’s communities through discussion, writing (optional) and related events.
Number of Residents: 6
Residency Support:
Eligibility & Requirements
To be eligible to apply for the 2026 Speculating on Pluralities Residency, applicant must be meet the following requirements:
The season will culminate in a juried fiction writing contest, inviting writers and creatives to submit short stories around the theme of “Speculating on Plurality.” With the breakneck pace of new technologies developing and their near compulsory integration into our lives, these new modalities are mediating our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and the world around us. Algorithms and their data feel as influential as geography in determining what and how we experience the world. We invite writers to explore the potentialities of the human/tech relationship in the near and far futures. Submissions will be read and reviewed by an alumni committee and the Eyebeam staff. Winners will be invited to read their submissions in an evening program in the late Fall of 2026. A selection of submissions will be published in Feed, our content channel featuring a continuous selection of artist interviews, essays, and criticism, and designed, printed, and distributed as a zine.
The new season is a return for Eyebeam and offers artists and our communities platforms to think critically and share ideas, focused time and resources for creation, and a dynamic, evolving space for play, risk taking, and connection. The series will also give a special focus to bringing voices across generations, media, mediums, and experiences together.
Timeline