NODES ART+TECH ENCOUNTERS: SUSTAINABILITY

Catch the next edition of NODES on October 28th at 10am PT where viewers will get to listen in on sustainability talks that focus on a range of topics from economic inequity to neural networks to art and environmental disaster. 

Speakers joining this edition of NODES will include artists Alice Yuan Zhang and Everest Pipkin as well as academic, J.T. Roane. Zhang is an artist, designer, and program organizer as well as co-founder of Virtual Care Lab, a resident artist at Culture Hub, and the facilitator of Digital Matterealities at NAVEL. Pipkin is a drawing, game, and software artist who has a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from Carnegie Mellon University. J.T. Roane is an assistant professor of African and African American Studies and is the lead of the Black Ecologies Initiative at Arizona State University. Their talk will explore the varying methods that create environmental impact through art, technology, and academia, and how digital creators can become more aware of their carbon footprint.  

Exploring artists like Zhang and Pipkin are encountering more and more opportunities for the use of new technologies through their artistic methods, which also presents the interrogation of artistic technology that has insurmountable environmental effects. Topics like NFTs (non-fungible tokens) used to supplement the income of creators, and their ecological footprint related to minting artwork on the blockchain will be examined. 

Guest speakers will also share a similar sustainability dilemma with regard to maintaining and using neural networks that have the ability to create costly impacts on the environment with huge carbon footprints. Additionally, Zhang, Pipkin, and Roane will attempt to make sense of an art-tech approach that also minds environmental challenges and climate risks while encouraging creators to understand what it means to continue to make digital artwork in times of crisis.