The 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship awards five artists $50,000 each; launches second edition of Shift Space essays on art and media
(MIAMI, FL––March 2, 2022) The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced today the recipients of the 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, an initiative that supports artists working with innovative approaches to technology and new media. Administered by United States Artists, the fellowship awards five artists annually with unrestricted grants of $50,000 each.
The fellowship, announced in 2021, supports artists who are using new and emerging technologies — such as artificial intelligence, digital media, augmented and virtual reality, digital fabrication, immersive installation, software and coding — in thoughtful, creative or poetic ways to expand the field.
Shift Space 2.0, the second edition of the fellowship’s partner publication, features a collection of conversations, interviews, essays and more that explore the field of new media, forging additional connections between the fellowship class and the field at large.
This year’s fellows approach the intersection of arts and tech as a platform for organizing and community engagement, utilizing formats from chatbots to sensory poems to amateur science to quilting. The diversity of approaches in their practices reflects the constantly evolving nature of the field.
The five 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows are:
- Complex Movements (Detroit, MI) – Complex Movements is an interdisciplinary artist collective supporting the transformation of communities through multimedia interactive performance work. The collective members–Carlos L05 Garcia, ill Weaver, Sage Crump, Wesley Taylor, and Waajeed–have worked together for over a decade, bridging their practices of animation, performance, installation, design and music production.
- 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.
- Mary Maggic (Los Angeles, CA) – Mary Maggic 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.
- 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.
- Ryan Kuo (Brooklyn, NY) – Ryan Kuo makes process-based and diagrammatic works that often invoke a state of argument. He has utilized video game engines, web and UX design, chatbots, productivity software and writing to produce circuitous movements that resemble bureaucratic negotiations and unresolved conflicts.
“Artists push us to think differently about technology–how it can be used to create new forms, and new ways of interacting and thinking,” said Koven Smith, Knight’s senior director of Arts. “The 2022 Arts and Tech fellows show how, even in times that require rapid adaptation, artists can point the way forward by using technology in expressive, ethical and innovative ways.”
The five fellows were selected by Knight Foundation, United States Artists, and a national panel of field leaders including Executive Director of Processing Foundation Dorothy R. Santos, artist and designer Jae Rhim Lee and Executive Director of Eyebeam Roderick Schrock.
The field of art and tech represents an exciting space for experimentation and research. By extension, it also requires ample time, space and resources, posing unique challenges for both artists and institutions. The Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship 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 provide new opportunities for collaboration.
One of these networks is Shift Space, an annual digital publication exploring new media landscapes and spotlighting the Knight Arts + Tech Fellows. Guest edited by Miami-based curator and editor Natalia Zuluaga, and produced by United States Artists, Shift Space 2.0 features stories about each of the Fellows in this year’s cohort as well as on the field at large. Contributors to Issue #2 are leading writers, artists and critics, including Ade J. Omotosho, K Allado-McDowell, Ernesto Oroza, Robin D.G. Kelley, Jason Edward Lewis, Alenda Y. Chang, Tao Leigh Goffe, Darla Migan, Stefanie Hessler and Simone Browne. Issue two of Shift Space is now available online at shiftspace.pub.
“I’m so proud and excited about the chorus of writers who contributed essays, interviews and stories to this edition of Shift Space 2.0,” said Zuluaga, Curator and Editor of Shift Space 2.0. “Each one of the contributions in this issue not only honors the life and work of this amazing cohort of artists and practitioners, but also teases out the varied connections between the field of art and technology and our everyday world.”
Last year’s inaugural fellows included: interdisciplinary art practice Black Quantum Futurism, visual artist Rashaad Newsome, multimedia artist Rodolfo Peraza, interdisciplinary artist Sondra Perry and transdisciplinary artist Stephanie Dinkins.
For more information, please visit: kf.org/artstechfellows2022
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About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
We are social investors who support democracy in America by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and in the success of American cities and towns where John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Learn more at kf.org and follow @knightfdn on social media.
About United States Artists
United States Artists is a national arts funding nonprofit that supports the country’s most compelling artists and cultural practitioners. Since its founding in 2006, the organization has awarded more than 700 individuals with over $33 million of direct support.
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