Gray Area

A few moments from opening night of the Gray Area Creative Code Showcase. Thank you to everyone who came out! The showcase continues tonight from 5 – 9 PM at the Grand Theater. 📷 "hidden units" by SiQi He "Under the Mango Tree" by Sarah Alli "Quadrant Ensemble" by Jeanette Andrews "Awe Engine" by Faraday Gray Area 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 📍 Gray Area / Grand Theater 🎟️ Learn more: luma.com/vc7s3dp0

INDEX is a project I have been developing over the last few months; it was installed in NYC at our event in collaboration with @GrayAreaorg and @FWBtweets, and was also shown as a live visual performance variation at Rockefeller Centre last week for the closing of @rhizome 7x7. The project critically examines the relationship between technology and economy through the lens of digital frameworks and language. It is a project about the dynamics of metadata containment and the production of information as a dynamic movement. INDEX is a piece that forms part of a much larger project, and is the result of years of research and production. It has a strong philosophical grounding. If you’d like to see it or find more about it, my DMs are open. This piece is also available for sale.

A first sneak peek at the 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐞𝐚 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞! Four artists made works concerning emotional inheritance, personal mythology, mourning, transformation, and the construction of selfhood through symbolic or ritualized experiences. Wolf Boxuan Chen uses a fairy-tale dance game to interrogate purity, violence, symbolic roles, and suffering beneath idealized narratives in their project “Blood, Snow and Ebony.” Lizzie Suh invites participants to reflect on identity, memory, grief, and transformation while still in the process of becoming in their piece “In Present Memoriam.” Through a series of questions, the work generates symbolic portraits using an AI model trained on the artist’s own paintings, blending machine generation with a distinctly human artistic voice. Connie Liu examines local Chinese burial traditions in Bay Area cemeteries in their installation “Daytrip to Colma.” Sifting through genealogy records originally assembled by the U.S. government to investigate immigration fraud from Hoisan, the project reflects on the contemporary practice of descendants seeking traces of their ancestral origins through gravestones amid generations of separation, anti-immigration, language loss, and diminished Chinese literacy. Tracy Jones reframes procrastination as a reflection of grief, overwhelm, and productivity culture in their piece “Procrastination.” Visitors contribute their own procrastinations to a living system that transforms them into immersive visuals and sound. See all their projects and more at the Creative Code Showcase! 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐞𝐚 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 📍 Gray Area / Grand Theater 📅 May 20 – 21, 2026 May 20 🥂 Member Preview + Happy Hour: 6 – 7 PM 🥂 Public Hours: 7 – 10 PM May 21 Showcase Open Hours: 5 – 9 PM 🎟️ RSVP: grayarea.org/event/gray-are…

showing a lil piece i made called "Playcard" at @GrayAreaorg this Wednesday + Thursday evening, come thru grayarea.org/event/gray-are… it turns any space in which it's installed into "art" by describing it in "the labels voice" -- kinda like this description of this post:

And come celebrate an incredible 7x7 day for @rhizome with a beautiful night of sound and visuals. Hosted at @reSOUND_newyork , co-hosted by @GrayAreaorg , @artw__rld , True Love, and Artifice. Featuring performances/sets/visuals from… @nonperformant , @delibeat , @bianjie_systems , Loka, Naz, and Dorothy Carlos. Post-Containment / rhizome 7x7 after party May 16, 2026 | 9:00 PM NYC Tickets: rhizome.itm.studio/m/post-contain…

We’re proud to sponsor this year’s rhizome 7x7, @rhizome legendary gathering pairing 7 artists and 7 technologists to "make something new" together. 7x7 has long been a point of connection between internet art, experimental technology, and the people shaping culture around them. We're excited to support this year’s edition and the ongoing exchange between East Coast and West Coast creative communities. Curated by Rhizome, Neema Githere, and 邊界 (Ian Margo & Alexandre Montserrat | 世然), this year’s edition draws from Zoë Sofia’s writing to explore containment through themes of interdependence, care, and connection. 7x7 takes place at the @newmuseum in NYC tomorrow, May 16, 2026. Learn more: rhizome.org/editorial/7x7-…

Last week at Gray Area (@GrayAreaorg), five artists shared their own AI models for the first time. Dream Models brought together Arvida Byström (@arvidabystrom), Huntrezz Janos (@hauntrezz), Lou Fauroux, Sharon Zheng, and Yvonne Fang (@fang_yvonne) to present custom models trained on their own visual worlds — each one distinct, strange, personal, and impossible to separate from the artist behind it. Thank you to everyone who came out, experimented with the models, and stayed late talking with us. And thank you to Gray Area and curator Alice Scope (@alicescope_) for helping make space for this kind of work to exist publicly. This is the future we want for creating with AI: not anonymous systems flattening culture, but tools shaped by real artistic perspectives and built to keep artists connected to the value their work creates.

Excited to teach a @fuserstudio workshop June 1 with @GrayAreaorg - sign up and let's make some 'Strange Anatomy' together!

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 𝐈𝐬 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞 ☀️ Design poetic mini-games, build virtual worlds in Blender, create live audiovisual systems with code, experiment with AI collage, or perform a lecture on the web. This summer’s workshops and intensive courses are led by artists and practitioners working across game design, experimental media, music, creative coding, and networked performance. 𝓘𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓿𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓮𝓼 ✶ Expressive Systems: Making Poetic Mini-Games in PICO-8 with Tonz Beglari ✶ Hybrid Live Coding: Designing Systems for Audiovisual Performance with Roxanne Harris ✶ Personal Worldbuilding with 3D Modeling in Blender with Claudia Miranda 𝓦𝓸𝓻𝓴𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓹𝓼 ✶ Strange Anatomy: Exquisite Corpses with Fuser Compositor and Creative Code with Laure Michelon ✶ Lecture Performance on the Web with Taeyoon Choi ✶ Techno Improvisation with Beat DJ with Nes Croft ~ Become a Gray Area Member: Education perks start at the Co-Creator level, including 20% off workshops, discounts on intensive courses, early access to registration, and free entry to events for you + guest. Learn more: grayarea.org/learn/

Media arts educators, we want to hear from you! If you teach art, creative technology, media arts, writing, design, architecture, games, sound, curation/research, or related fields, we’d love your perspective on how AI tools are changing the classroom and studio. Gray Area is partnering with researchers to document how artist-educators are adapting in real time. The survey takes less than 5 minutes. (And as a thank you, pick up a free Moleskine journal next time you’re at Gray Area) Share your perspective → docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

NEXT WEEK! 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐒𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 Experience immersive installations, interactive poetry, artistic games, and experimental digital environments created by artists, designers, and technologists from Gray Area’s flagship Creative Code Intensive. This year’s showcase features work by 13 participants exploring themes of connection, memory, surveillance, and cultural identity in a moment where AI increasingly shapes social interaction and the ways we relate to technology. Over two days, experience the work, meet the creators, and get inspired by emerging voices working across art and technology. 📍 Gray Area / Grand Theater 📅 May 20 – 21, 2026 Opening Night May 20 🥂 Member Preview + Happy Hour: 6 – 7 PM 🥂 Public Hours: 7 – 10 PM Showcase Open Hours May 21 5 – 9 PM All ages Sliding scale admission: $0–30 Free for members Featuring work by: charles_irl Chih Yu Chen Connie Liu Dylan Peet Fabian Fabro Faraday Jeanette Andrews Lizzie Suh Sarah Alli SiQi He Theo Popov Tracy Jones Wolf Boxuan Chen Learn more and RSVP: grayarea.org/event/gray-are…

On 13 May, 邊界 will be hosting an evening gathering at @index_space_org Greenpoint, NYC, bringing together a cross-coastal group of artists, researchers, technologists and cultural intermediaries from New York and San Francisco. The event is designed to foster meaningful dialogue around the role of artistic practice in shaping how technical institutions, research communities, and public imaginaries intersect. With the support of @GrayAreaorg and @FWBtweets. We will be presenting @yalla_halim work, “Singulars”: a series of live poetry duels between a human poet and a machine. The audience votes to decide the winner, and their votes train the machine for future performances, helping poetry and machine reach, possibly, a new singularity. DM for more information!

We partnered with Gray Area to commission five artists to train custom AI models on their own work. Join us May 9th as @arvidabystrom, @hauntrezz, Lou Fauroux, @fang_yvonne, and Sharon Zheng discuss the concepts behind their models and what AI means for their practice.

@alicescope_ @titlesxyz

Curated by @alicescope_ and presented by @titlesxyz, 𝘿𝙍𝙀𝘼𝙈 𝙈𝙊𝘿𝙀𝙇𝙎 brings together artist talks and live demos for a look inside what an artistic practice looks like when it’s dreaming. ✧ Free with RSVP ✧ Drinks will be served ✧ All Ages ✧ Seated Program May 9 at Gray Area 6:30PM 2665 Mission Street, San Francisco RSVP: luma.com/3c7tytnl

𝘿𝙍𝙀𝘼𝙈 𝙈𝙊𝘿𝙀𝙇𝙎 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭? We’re living through a crisis of the image. Generative AI has made visual production feel infinite, authorless, and increasingly detached from reality. At the same time, questions of authorship, ownership, and artistic agency are becoming harder to ignore. This Saturday, May 9, @arvidabystrom, @hauntrezz, Lou Fauroux, @fang_yvonne, and Sharon Zheng unveil custom AI models trained exclusively on their own work. @habitual_truant

𝐓𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰: 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐤𝐢 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐊𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧 RML and Gray Area present a rare evening with William Basinski, the legendary experimental composer behind The Disintegration Loops. Using obsolete technology, analog tape loops, and the slow decay of recorded sound, Basinski creates haunting compositions that hold memory, time, and impermanence in suspension. The night also features Kelly Moran, a New York-based composer and pianist known for expanding the piano into hypnotic, textured, and deeply expressive territory. Thursday, April 30 8 PM Gray Area Last tickets available: grayarea.org/event/william-…

What does an art practice look like when it’s dreaming? This spring, TITLES and @GrayAreaorg gave five artists an unusual brief: train a custom AI model on your own creative practice, and see what it dreams up. On May 9th, Arvida Byström, Huntrezz Janos, Lou Fauroux, Yvonne Fang, and Sharon Zheng unveil their models for the first time, and explore what happens when a body of work begins generating from within itself. Curated by Alice Scope (@alicescope_) Free RSVP at the link below. Saturday, May 9, 2026 Doors at 6:30 PM Gray Area / Grand Theater 2665 Mission St, San Francisco

𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐛𝐨𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐫 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 Our popular hands-on workshop returns this spring, led by audio-visual artist Sean Russell Hallowell aka isorhythmics. Over two days, you’ll learn how to design basic electronic oscillators with integrated circuits and discrete components. By the end, you’ll have built your own playable instrument, capable of generating synth melodies and sequencing drum patterns in real time. No previous experience is necessary, and all materials are provided. Dates: Tuesday, May 12 + Wednesday, May 13, 2026 Time: 6 – 9 PM Scholarships Available 🏗️ 🎛️ Enroll: grayarea.org/course/breadbo…

Grantee Spotlight 🔦 {B/qKC} launches online archive of midwestern Black queer history—and it took no data centers to do it. In 2025, Gray Area teamed up with @techsoup and @FFDWeb to launch the Cultural Memory Lab. An incubator for artists and archivists leveraging decentralized tech for community-driven memory work, the Cultural Memory Lab sought to support projects developing new models for digital archives—projects like {B/qKC}, led by Nasir Anthony Montalvo. {B/qKC} is a grassroots archive of Black queer history based in Kansas City, MO. The archive’s new website, bqkc.1800nasi.net, launched in February, opening its digital archive to the public and inviting people to explore its inaugural collections focused on Kansas City’s historic Black gay bar, Soakie’s. Powered by decentralized web technology, {B/qKC} offers a new model for digital archiving that allows the archive to exist outside of third-party services and corporate-controlled servers. {B/qKC}’s website is archived on IPFS and is hosted on a physical server (powered simply by a Raspberry Pi 4) operated by its team, ensuring full control over data access and security. Beyond its technical innovations, {B/qKC} is using its archive as a conduit to build better futures for its community. The archive operates on a unique co-licensing model with its elders, allowing the archive to share elders’ stories while ensuring they remain in control of their original materials. By providing an ethical, accessible, and sustainable approach to data stewardship, {B/qKC} serves as a powerful example of how communities can use decentralized technologies to steward their own histories. To access the archive, visit bqkc.1800nasi.net. Congratulations to the {B/qKC} on this historic achievement! bqkc.1800nasi.net