2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship
The Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, administered by United States Artists, seeks to establish new channels of support for artists through unrestricted funding to support their work, while also building a network of practitioners and professionals in the field to new opportunities for collaboration in Knight communities and beyond.
We’re proud to present the 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows — five artists using new and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, immersive installations, and virtual and immersive reality in creative and poetic ways to expand the field. Each one receives an unrestricted grant of $50,000 each.
As part of the Fellowship, Knight and United States Artists has created the second edition of Shift Space, a web-based publication exploring new media landscapes and spotlighting the inaugural Knight Arts + Tech Fellows.
Shift Space 2.0 features stories about the 2022 Fellows as well as writings on the emerging and constantly-evolving field at large. Guest edited by artist and researcher Natalia Zuluaga, and produced by United States Artists, Shift Space is available at shiftspace.pub.
Meet the 2022 fellows
Mother Cyborg
Detroit, MI
Mother Cyborg is a multimedia artist who uses music, performance, DIY publishing, quilting, and popular education to elevate collective technological consciousness and agency. At the age of eight, she taught herself piano and cello. At 24 her cello performances using a custom program to abstract videos of thunderstorms and sunrises with frequency and volume left audiences in tears. She then realized the power art, media, and technology have in facilitating collective emotional experiences. Check out more of Mother Cyborg’s story and work HERE.
Mary Maggic
Los Angeles, CA
Mary Maggic (b. Los Angeles, ’91) is an artist working primarily at the intersection of hormones, body and gender politics, and environmental toxicity. Their work spans amateur science, public workshopology, participatory performance, documentary, and speculative fiction. Since 2015, Maggic has used “biohacking” as a xeno-feminist practice of care that carries the potential to demystify invisible systems of molecular biopower. They are a recipient of the Prix Ars Electronica Honorary Mention in Hybrid Arts (2017) for the project “Open Source Estrogen” and a 10-month Fulbright research award in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2019) investigating the role of Javanese mysticism in the plastic pollution crisis. Maggic is a current member of the online network Hackteria – Open Source Biological Art, the tactical theater collective Aliens in Green, and the Asian artist association Mai Ling Vienna. More on Mary Maggic HERE.
James Allister Sprang
Philadelphia, PA
James Allister Sprang’s work combines elements of photography, sound, and installation, existing in gallery spaces, theater spaces, and the space generally found between the ears, to tell sensory poems for the spirit. The son of Caribbean immigrants and originally from Miami, Sprang weaves together the sounds and images of his ancestral past with the present in a multimedia practice of creative patience and deep listening. This work is informed by the Black interior as well as radical and experimental traditions. A graduate of the Cooper Union (BFA) and the University of Pennsylvania (MFA), Sprang has completed numerous residencies domestically and internationally including Shandaken, YoungArts, Baryshnikov Art Center, The Public Theater, BHQFU, Fountainhead, and The Kitchen. He has shown and performed at The Brooklyn Museum, PAFA Museum, Storm King Art Center, The Public Theater, Baryshnikov Art Center, The Kitchen, The Apollo Theater, Pioneer Works, On The Boards, Knockdown Center, and The Painted Bride Art Center. See more of James’ work HERE.
Complex Movements
Detroit, MI
Complex Movements is a Detroit-based artist collective supporting the transformation of communities by exploring the connections of complex science and social justice movements through multimedia interactive performance work. Their creative projects are inspired by the writings, philosophy and experience of Detroit-based activist Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) and grassroots organizing in Detroit. Complex Movements is comprised of fine artist, designer, animator, curator, lyricist, professor, Wesley Taylor; artist, designer, and engineer, L05 (Carlos Garcia); lyricist, organizer, and filmmaker, ill Weaver; creative producer, artist, cultural strategist Sage Crump and Waajeed, who is a music producer, sound designer, and filmmaker. Collective members have expertise in fields of animation, creative technologies, performance, installation arts, design and music production. Each member has spent years honing and evolving their craft, and have been collaborating on various projects for over a decade. Complex Movements’ work moves beyond call and response into a regenerative dialogue between artistic methodologies and communities. Learn more HERE.
Ryan Kuo
Brooklyn, NY
Ryan Kuo makes process-based and diagrammatic works that often invoke a state of argument. He has utilized videogame engines, web and UX design, chatbots, productivity software, and writing to produce circuitous movements that resemble bureaucratic negotiations and unresolved conflicts. His work is distributed online at left gallery, has appeared at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Queens Museum, Stroom Den Haag (The Hague), Goethe-Institut China (Beijing), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Goldsmiths, Copperfield Gallery (London), Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge), bitforms gallery (New York), TRANSFER (LA), and MIT Media Lab, and has been published in Artforum, Art in America, BOMB, and Rhizome. Kuo has been in residence at Pioneer Works and the Queens Museum Studio Program. He was raised in Elkins, West Virginia and holds a Master of Science in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is not a programmer. See more of Ryan’s work HERE.
