F.A.T. GOLD: San Francisco
“Release early, often and with rap music. This is Notorious R&D.” – F.A.T. Lab
Celebrating nearly eight years of pop culture and R&D, the renegade art organization known as the Free Art & Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is going GOLD. F.A.T. GOLD, that is. From May 21-31, Gray Area Foundation for the Arts will present the acclaimed work of F.A.T. Lab. Curated by Lindsay Howard, the exhibition invites the public to experience and engage with the collective’s groundbreaking projects.
F.A.T. GOLD: San Francisco brings together an international group of thirty collaborators comprised of artists, hackers, engineers, musicians, and graffiti writers. Many of the members will be in San Francisco during the week of May 18, participating in panels, collaborative projects, and leading workshops.
The exhibition will feature significant works from 2007 to the present, including new projects to be launched on opening night. Showcasing a comprehensive and critical selection of the group’s diverse output, the exhibition includes video, software, net art, installation, and performance. F.A.T. Lab members will also be working and hacking on new cutting-edge projects to be added to the exhibition on the fly.
The Free Art and Technology (F.A.T.) Lab is an organization dedicated to enriching the public domain through the research and development of creative technologies and media. F.A.T. Lab’s greater network of artists, engineers, scientists, and musicians are committed to supporting open values and the public domain through the use of emerging open licenses, support for open entrepreneurship, and the admonishment of secrecy, copyright monopolies, and patents. F.A.T. Lab was co-founded in 2007 by Evan Roth and James Powderly.
F.A.T. Lab members have included
Mike Baca, Aram Bartholl, Allison Burtch, Magnus Eriksson, Michael Frumin, Geraldine Juárez, KATSU, Tobias Leingruber, Greg Leuch, Golan Levin, Zach Lieberman, LM4K, Kyle McDonald, Dan Moore, Jonah Peretti, Christopher “moot” Poole, James Powderly, David Renault, Evan Roth, Borna Sammak, Randy Sarafan, Becky Stern, Chris Sugrue, Mathieu Tremblin, Maddy Varner, Addie Wagenknecht, Theo Watson, Jamie Wilkinson, Bennett Williamson, and Hennessy Youngman.
Support for curatorial research provided by Eyebeam.
Funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Production support & fundraising by Gray Area.
Artists
Addie Wagenknecht
Addie Wagenknecht work explores the tension between expression and technology. She seeks to blend conceptual work with traditional forms of hacking and sculpture. Past exhibitions include MuseumsQuartier Wien; La Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France; The Istanbul Modern; and Museum of Contemporary Art in Vienna. Most recently she founded Deep Lab […
Allison Burtch
Allison Burtch creates liberation technology. She is currently a resident at Eyebeam, the leading art and technology center in the United States, where she created a small ultrasonic hardware device that protects smart phone users from passive audio surveillance. She also teaches “Critical Theory of Technology: Politics, Utopia and Code” …
Aram Bartholl
Aram Bartholl’s work creates an interplay between internet, culture and reality. The versatile communication channels are taken for granted these days, but how do they influence us? According to the paradigm change of media research Bartholl not just asks what man is doing with the media, but what media does …
Becky Stern
Becky Stern is the Director of Wearable Electronics at Adafruit in New York City. Each week she publishes a new do-it-yourself craft+tech project tutorial online at learn.adaruit.com and on YouTube. She’s been combining textiles with electronics since 2005, and helps develop the Adafruit FLORA wearable Arduino-compatible product …
Bennett Williamson
Bennett Williamson was born in Boston and lives in Santa Cruz, California. As an artist, DJ, and project manager, he produces work in galleries, on the radio, and online. Interests include vernacular media, signage, weaving, and technology’s influence on popular culture.
Chris Sugrue
Chris Sugrue is an artist and programmer developing interactive installations, audio-visual performances and experimental interfaces. Her works experiment with technology in playful and curious ways and investigate topics such as artificial life, eye-tracking and optical illusions. She has exhibited internationally in such festivals and galleries as Ars Electronica, Sónar …
Dan Moore
Dan Moore is a Brooklyn-based media artist and F.A.T. Lab Virtual Research Fellow with training in Computer Engineering. Combining his skills in Software Development, App Design and Interaction Design with his art practice, Moore has contributed to award-winning interactive installations and app development as Lead Product Developer at …
David Renault
David Renault is born in Rennes in 1979, he lives and works in Rennes, France. He’s a part with Mathieu Tremblin of the duo les Frères Ripoulain since 2006. David Renault considers the city as a territory of visual and sonic experiments inspired by nomads, wild and anonymous …
Evan Roth
Evan Roth is an American artist based in Paris whose practice visualizes and archives culture through unintended uses of technologies. Creating prints, sculptures, videos and websites, his work explores the relationship between misuse and empowerment and the effect that philosophies from hacker communities can have when applied to digital and …
Golan Levin
Golan Levin is Associate Professor of Computation Arts at Carnegie Mellon University, where he also holds Courtesy Appointments in the School of Computer Science, the School of Design, and the Entertainment Technology Center. Since 2009, Levin has also served as Director of CMU’s Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, a laboratory …
Greg Leuch
Greg Leuch is a creative & user interaction designer, specializing in user interface design, usability, front-end development, and feature research. He has worked on a variety of projects in the past, large and small, with emphasis on web startups and e-commerce. He was previously Senior Designer at BuzzFeed and Director …
James Powderly
James Powderly was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, U.S.A. in the year of the dragon, 1976. He has been making technology and media at the fringes of robotics, graffiti, space science, tattoos and rock n roll since 1992. James was a Senior Research Fellow in the Eyebeam R&…
Kyle McDonald
Kyle McDonald is an artist who works in the open with code. He is a contributor to arts-engineering toolkits like openFrameworks, and spends a significant amount of time building tools that allow artists to use new algorithms in creative ways. His work is very process-oriented, and he has made a …
Lindsay Howard
Lindsay Howard is a curator exploring how the internet is shaping art and culture. She curated the first and second digital art auctions at Phillips in New York and London, which were called an “art breakthrough” by WIRED Magazine. Previously she served as the Curatorial Director at 319 Scholes and …
Maddy Varner
Maddy Varner chills in Pittsburgh, USA. She’s also a part of Deep Lab, a v. cool cyberfeminist collective.
Magnus Eriksson
Magnus Eriksson is affiliated with a number of phenomena related with philosophy, pop culture, sociology and life on the Internet that go under the name of Piratbyrån, Interactive Institute, Telecomix, Gothenburg Hackerspace, Forskningsavdelningen and The Julia Group. He is currently a Phd candidate studying the relationship between technology, law, …
Mathieu Tremblin
Mathieu Tremblin is born in 1980 in Le Mans, he works and lives in Arles and Strasbourg, France. He’s a part with David Renault of the duo les Frères Ripoulain since 2006. He’s a member of the photographers collective BIP since 2005. Inspired by anonymous, autonomous and …
Randy Sarafan
Randy Sarafan is an interstellar wrecking ball of immeasurable destruction. He apologizes for nothing. His work has appeared in the National Enquirer, New York Times, California Academy of Sciences, MOMA gift shop, Tech Museum of Innovation, as well as on the Today Show, Tonight Show, NPR, the BBC, and Playboy …
Theo Watson
Theodore Watson is an artist, designer and experimenter whose work is born out of the curiosity and excitement of designing experiences that come alive and invite people to play. Theodore’s work ranges from creating new tools for artistic expression, experimental musical systems, to immersive, interactive environments with full-body interaction. …
Tobias Leingruber
Tobias Leingruber is a communication designer and project manager at the Mozilla Firefox brand team, previously Mozilla Labs. His personal work, as fellow of the Free Art & Technology Lab, explores the mutual impacts of internet and society. The web belongs to us! His latest work includes the Social Network …
Zachary Lieberman
Zachary Lieberman is an artist with a simple goal: he wants you surprised. His work uses technology in a playful way to break down the fragile boundary between the visible and the invisible. Augmenting the body’s ability to communicate has always been at the core of Lieberman’s work. …
