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Margarita Athanasiou, Stephanie Dinkins, Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser, John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio

TECHNE

Four Digital Installations

Presented by BAM and Onassis

TECHNE immerses viewers in stories of evolution, endurance, and unlocked potential.

TECHNE is a multi-part experiential program comprising four large-scale digital artworks. Created with generative AI, real-time interactive displays, and immersive sound, this program transports viewers into four distinctive new realms, brought to life by visionary creators.  TECHNE is curated by Onassis ONX, an initiative by Onassis Culture dedicated to the development of new media art and digital experiences.

The Vivid Unknown (Jan 4, 5, 7), by John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio, is a collective experience that uses AI and computer vision to reimagine Reggio’s iconic 1982 film, Koyaanisqatsi. Visitors will explore the primal nexus of humans, nature, and technology, dynamically participating in shaping the unfolding narrative. As part of this special program, Koyaanisqatsi will be screened in its original form at BAM Rose Cinemas on January 7.

The Golden Key (Jan 8—11), by Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser, immerses visitors in the mythical fantasies of an artificially intelligent machine as it composes a never ending story. The work imagines a future world that has endured the severest impacts of climate change. Winner of the Jury Award in the 2024 SXSW XR Experience competition, The Golden Key allows audiences to encounter and intervene in the new narrative and myth-making powers imagined for AI.

In Voices (Jan 12, 14, 15), artist Margarita Athanasiou dives into the hidden histories of Victorian-era mediums and New Age spiritualists, as well as her own grandmother. What emerges is a story about female empowerment, capitalism, and the unexpected relationship between information technology and the spirit world. Her riveting video essay makes the case for the body as the ultimate communication device.

In Secret Garden (Jan 16—19), Stephanie Dinkins has cultivated a virtual oasis populated with Black women who share stories of power and resilience. Multigenerational narratives collapse past, present, and future across interactive vignettes.

SCHEDULE

The Vivid Unknown by John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio
Saturday, January 4 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm
Sunday, January 5 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm
Tuesday, January 7 @ 7pm, 8:30pm

The Golden Key by Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser
Wednesday, January 8 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Thursday, January 9 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Friday, January 10 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Saturday, January 11 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm

Voices by Margarita Athanasiou
Sunday, January 12 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm
Tuesday, January 14 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Wednesday, January 15 @ 7pm, 8:30pm

Secret Garden by Stephanie Dinkins
Thursday, January 16 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Friday, January 17 @ 7pm, 8:30pm
Saturday, January 18 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm
Sunday, January 19 @ 2pm, 3:30pm, 7pm, 8:30pm

Run time: 90 minutes

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VENUE

BAM Fisher
321 Ashland
Brooklyn, New York 11217

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Access:
Accessible to wheelchair users; Accessible restrooms and accessible routes; FM assistive listening devices with headsets and neck loops; Noise-reducing headphones, fidgets and sensory items. If you require any additional accommodations, please contact access@lincolncenter.org or 212-875-5375.

LINKS

BAM

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Margarita Athanasiou is a media artist based in Athens, Greece. Her practice is text-based, utilizes collage techniques and brings together autobiography and history to create multi-layered narratives in the form of publications, video essays, prints, memes and digital images.

John Fitzgerald is an artist and cofounder of the experiential studio, Sensorium. Recent Co-creator credits include: Polymorphic (Plásmata, Athens ’22), Metamorphic (Sundance ’20 & SIGGRAPH ‘20), Zikr: A Sufi Revival (Sundance ’18 & IDFA ‘18), and objects in mirror AR closer than they appear (Tribeca ’18). John’s work has also been presented at the Panama Biennial, Telluride, Berlinale, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, and the Simón Patiño Foundation in Bolivia. He holds an honors degree from the department of Modern Culture and Media Studies from Brown University. He is a former Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art Science and Technology, Visiting Scholar at the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism, Pulitzer Center Grantee, RLab XR Resident, and a founding member of the New Museum’s incubator NEW INC. John is currently the Innovation Director at the Onassis ONX Studio.

Godfrey Reggio is an American filmmaker and creator of a unique experimental cinematic poetry. He is widely known throughout the world for his wordless filmography, especially the pre-eminent trilogy of Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance (1982); Powaqqatsi: Life in Transition (1988); and Naqoyqatsi: Life as War (2002). His work reveals a humanist philosophy about our planet, the encroachment of technology on nature, ancient cultures, and the splendor that disappears as a result. They chronicle the impact of the modernizing world on our physical and psychological environment.

Marc Da Costa is an artist and anthropologist whose work explores the relationship between emerging technology and lived experience. Da Costa’s artistic research and interactive installations examine how data and technical infrastructures focus our attention on the world in particular ways and, in so doing, shape the structures of experience available to us.  Da Costa’s anthropological scholarship has explored these themes through studies of placemaking practices in the Anthropocene, with particular focus on Antarctic research expeditions and critical cartography. Da Costa’s work has been exhibited widely in the US and Europe and his writing on the intersection of data and society has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vice and elsewhere.

Matthew Niederhauser is an artist and educator. His work pushes the limits of emerging AI and XR technologies within a wide range of mediums. He studied anthropology at Columbia University before earning his MFA in Art Practice from SVA while also a Pulitzer Center Grantee, Visiting Artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science, and Technology (CAST) and Member of NEW INC. At NEW INC he co founded Sensorium, an experiential studio working at the forefront of immersive storytelling. When not focusing on projects that have premiered at the Venice Film Festival, Sundance New Frontier, Tribeca Film Festival, SXSW, and IDFA DocLab, he teaches at NYU Tisch and Tandon. Most recently, Matthew became the Technical Director at Onassis ONX in New York.

Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist who creates experiences that spark dialog about race, gender, aging, and our future histories. Her work in AI and other mediums uses emerging technologies and social collaboration to work toward technological ecosystems based on care and social equity. Dinkins’ experiences with and explorations of artificial intelligence have led to a deep interest in how algorithmic systems impact communities of color in particular and all of our futures more generally. Dinkins’ experiments with AI have led full circle to recognize the stories, myths, and cultural perspectives, aka data, that we hold and share and inform society and have done so for millennia. She has concluded that our stories are our algorithms. We must value, grow, respect, and collaborate with each other’s stories (data) to build care and broadly compassionate values into the technological ecosystems that increasingly support our future.

CREATION + FUNDING

TECHNE is curated by Onassis ONX, presented by BAM and Onassis, a part of BAM’s Next Wave 2024 and Emerging Visions.

Bloomberg Philanthropies is BAM’s Season Sponsor. Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by the Mellon Foundation. Leadership support for BAM Access Programs provided by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Leadership support for Next Wave 2024 provided by Ford Foundation. Leadership support for BAM’s strategic initiatives provided by Altman Foundation.