Event Dates:
September 27 to 29, 2024

Location:
LUME Studios
393 Broadway
New York, NY

*Subjective Art Festival Takes Over Tribeca*

The first annual Subjective Art Festival is currently lighting up New York City, running from September 27 to 29, 2024. Taking place in Tribeca, the digital art festival has transformed a six-floor loft building into an immersive experience for art enthusiasts, collectors, and creators. With a lineup featuring some of the most innovative names in the digital art world, this festival is making a serious mark on the NYC art scene.

The festival’s extensive roster of featured artists includes names like Kaoru Tanaka, Aline Subi, and Wildy Martinez, with each artist bringing their unique vision to the space. With styles spanning from generative art to digital illustration and video, there’s something here for everyone, whether you’re a long-time digital art fan or just starting to explore the genre.

Curatorial partners like HUG, ARTXCODE, and Superchief Gallery have ensured the festival feels both dynamic and cohesive. Each floor of the building is meticulously curated, making it easy for attendees to explore the different facets of digital art while still feeling part of a larger conversation about the future of creativity.

Meanwhile, evenings at the festival bring a different kind of energy with a series of performances from musicians, dancers, and performance artists. Festival-goers enjoy live shows by Fernando Samalot, Dotan Negrin, and more, turning the venue into a buzzing hub of art and community. These performances provide the perfect way to wind down after a full day program, while mingling with fellow digital art lovers.

The immersive art section is one of the major draws, inviting visitors into mesmerizing experiences crafted by contemporary digital artists. From AI-generated visuals to glitch art and moving images, the space envelopes visitors in a showcase of what’s possible when technology meets art.

The lofts turn into an art fair with a curated selection of interactive and digital artworks. As visitors explore different sections of the six floors, they encounter innovative pieces from celebrated artists like XCOPY, Snowfro, and Shavonne Wong, all exploring the boundaries of technology and artistic expression.

One of the standout interactive works at the festival is COMMUNION, a deeply reflective installation created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the isolation it caused. Designed by Aseem Suri as a response to the brutal lockdowns, especially in places like India where access to parks and natural spaces was cut off, COMMUNION asks us to reconnect with nature, and ourselves, in a post-pandemic world. It taps into the emotional void left by the absence of human touch during the pandemic, reminding us how integral this sense is to our emotional well-being.

The installation encourages viewers to physically interact with plants, rekindling the curiosity many of us had as children when exploring nature. Each plant responds uniquely to touch. As you run your fingers along their stems, tap their leaves, or bend them gently, the plants produce sounds designed to reflect the gestures they most intuitively respond to. A succulent might invite a percussive tap, while a leafy plant may generate musical notes depending on how many leaves are touched. The installation mimics the way trees communicate through their root systems, with visible wires running through the soil, symbolizing the unseen connections in nature.

COMMUNION offers an artful reminder of the importance of touch — both with nature and with each other. In a world that has felt increasingly concrete, the installation envisions a future where we can once again feel, explore, and reconnect with the natural world with the same curiosity we had before the pandemic. It's a meditation on healing, interaction, and the unspoken language between humans and the environment.

On top of the visual experiences, the educational panels are drawing curious minds. Artists, curators, and industry insiders are engaging in inspiring discussions about the evolving world of digital art, offering an engaging look into how far digital art has come, and where it's headed next. Attendees are invited to explore the history and the exciting future, learning how internet culture has influenced this growing art movement.

During the first panel titled Championing Computer Art, Michael Spalter and Sofia Garcia discussed the long history of generative art, and the challenges it has faced over the decades.

“The idea of using computers in art was so unheard of in the 1960s that artists were literally met with tomatoes,” Spalter shared, referencing pioneers like Harold Cohen and Vera Molnár, who faced backlash when they first experimented with computer-generated art. “Just like Monet’s impressionist works were once compared by art critics to wallpaper.”

What was once controversial is now celebrated, with Garcia reflecting on how generative art today is honored in ways unimaginable back then. She hinted that AI art, currently at the center of so much discussion, might undergo a similar evolution. “Let's reflect back on AI art in a few years,” she suggested, implying that its full cultural impact is yet to be understood.

Spalter shared an anecdote, recounting the story of when he acquired the works of a Japanese artist in the 1980s who not only built his own computer but also created custom software to generate his art. Spalter noted that he went to Japan with $40,000 worth of yen to buy the artist’s work, yet he wasn’t sure how to declare such purchase at customs, highlighting how systems still haven't fully adapted to digital art.

A not-so-fun fact about the story Spalter shared with the audience is that when the artist’s computer died, a decade of his work vanished with it.

Garcia pointed out how younger generations — who often have a background in coding — are better equipped to appreciate the intricacies of generative art. “They see the person behind the code, and how it’s an extension of someone's mind,” she explained. “But for those who don't understand it, it’s often met with rejection.”

The panelists emphasized the importance of recognizing “music, mathematics, and code” as universal languages that can bring people together.

*Sofia Garcia and Michael Spalter at Subjective Art Festival*

A second panel featuring Sasha Stiles, Carla Gannis, and A. V. Marraccini, and moderated by Clay Devlin was titled The Artist, The Machine, & The Future, where the panelists dove deep into the implications and consequences of AI art.

The panelists started off by sharing their personal connections with technology – these artists view the machines they work with as extensions or “alter egos.” For them, collaborating with AI tools feels like enhancing their creative process rather than replacing it.

Carla Gannis, an XR artist and educator, referred to her digital twin which she’s been developing since 1998: “The machine becomes an enhanced version of myself,” said Gannis, underscoring the intimate connection many digital artists feel with their tools.

The panelists also explored the ethical implications of AI art. A. V. Marraccini, who is a critic, essayist, and historian of art, stressed the need for artists and society to understand the impact of these technologies on labor rights and the environment. “We need to ask ourselves if the trade-off is worth it.”

Sasha Stiles, who approaches AI from a humanities and poetry perspective, spoke about mentoring the AI models she works with. Highlighting that the exploration of a collective consciousness is drawing her into these systems, she suggested that artists and engineers are all part of a broader conversation about the future of creativity.

Sasha Stiles is a poet and a digital artist, pioneering in the field of AI-powered literature, who has been experimenting with algorithmic language tools like GPT-2 since 2018. Her practice took an invigorating turn when she asked the AI to translate a poem she was working on into a trans-human language — a poem about what it means to be human in a post-human age.

Stiles started using AI-powered language models to revise her verses and even further reflect her voice as a poet. She trained her “AI alter-ego” by feeding it with her own writings as well as texts by other writers that were influential for her, such as T.S Elliot, Sylvia Plath, Allen Ginsburg, Walt Whitman, and Octavia Butler. By giving the AI all the information in her head, Sasha Stiles asks her AI alter-ego to write more like her.

Mentioning how she is currently working on training the models that write the poems, Stiles urged that the focus shouldn't be solely on the final output but also on the intermediary craft techniques that shape AI-generated art. “We need to talk more about the inner workings of these models,” she said.

Throughout the discussions, one theme remained clear: digital art deserves a critical framework akin to traditional art. Marraccini summed it up well: “Any medium can produce mediocre art. The challenge is establishing a critical basis for judging digital art. Once we do that, digital art can finally take its place in major museums.”

*Clay Devlin, Sasha Stiles, A. V. Marraccini, and Carla Gannis at Subjective Art Festival*

As the festival continues to unfold, these panels, combined with the diverse array of exhibited works, are pushing forward conversations that will likely shape the future of digital art. The programming continues today with a panel featuring Ruby Justice, Kelani Nichole, and Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, offering insights into media art’s past, present, and future.

Whether through AI, generative art, or code, the artists and organizers at the Subjective Art Festival are setting the stage for new forms of creative expression to thrive. As the weekend unfolds, Subjective Art Festival continues to spark inspiration and conversation.

If you’re in New York City, this is the place to be.