Ali Santana is a director and multi-disciplinary artist working with video, sound, collage, installation, and performance. Santana, a native Brooklynite is influenced by community, natural patterns, music and, ancient cultures. His work often explores topics related to Black American identity, observations of nature, and sensory perception. Ali's audio-visual works combine video art, performance and experimental cinema with booming beats, sound design and original recordings which are chopped, looped, and arranged in real-time to create an abstract method of storytelling that he dubs Boom ..read more

Brett Volker and Steve Milton are the founders of Listen, a cultural innovation agency rooted in sound and music, but seasoned at the strategic use of cultural programs to make an impact. They work with brands and innovative artists to craft boundary-pushing creative projects. Learn more about them at www.wearelisten.com Follow them @wearelisten ..read more

Ziv Schneider is an artist and designer working with new and emerging technologies, often in the context of non-fiction storytelling. She is an alumna, former research fellow, and sometimes lecturer at NYU ITP. Ziv is currently a Creative Technologist at The Brown Institute for Media Innovation. Her recent project Sylvia is a storytelling experiment that disrupted the virtual influencer landscape for a short period of time. Unlike her “peers” who are designed to appear young forever, Sylvia was designed to age rapidly. She posted to Instagram from July to November 2020, and duri ..read more

Vivian Greven’s painting is based on an adept play with various notions of bodies, being and representation, with concepts of classical antiquity merging with pop art and digital image worlds. Vivian Greven’s painting is characteristic of our present times, which are shaped by the internet and social media and thus dissolve the hierarchies between original, reproduction and simulation. The art historical and contemporary historical nestling corresponds with Greven’s painterly treatment of surfaces. Parts of her painting rise as actual reliefs that encounter sprayed or painted fictions of bodie ..read more

Yuge studied drawing under Chinese contemporary painter Kaixi Cui 崔开玺 and eventually moved into Video Art after earning her Master of Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yuge’s work addresses connections, isolation and longing across urban and natural environments. She creates immersive experiences through digital collaging and sculptural reliefs. Yuge also directs and curates the 3300-square foot 150 Media Stream, a unique public digital art installation in Chicago. In addition to her MFA, she holds a masters degree in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University ..read more

Greg is the co-founder and CEO of Backyard Brains, an Ann Arbor-based company started as a neuroscience graduate student at the University of Michigan. Greg is a published neuroscientist and engineer and develops tools, curriculum and experiments that allow the general public participate in neural discovery.  He is an award-winning investigator at the National Institute of Health, a Senior Fellow at TED and the recipient of the White House Champion of Change award from Barack Obama for his commitment to citizen science. Learn more about Backyard Brains here: https://backyardbrains.com/ab ..read more

In this episode, Peruvian artist Efraín Rozas talks with us about his career, projects, how he uses software programming to produce sound installations and his experience dancing with robots. -About Efraín Rozas- Peruvian performer/composer and robotics/software developer. His work was described as “A heady confluence of technology, culture and cognition” by The New Yorker, and “A deep psychonautic dive” by Wire Magazine. He will be resident at The Kitchen on 2021. He is recipient of the NY State Council on the Arts/ Wavefarm Media Arts Assistance Fund, Jerome Foundation/Harvestworks New Work ..read more

In this episode, multidisciplinary artist, Saks Afridi discusses his collaborative projects with artisans and technologists across the globe to create sociopolitical and thought provoking works of art. These collaborations range from the creation of intricately designed traditionally woven rugs featuring UFOs to explorations with archaeological leanings, and something Saks calls "Sci-fi Sufism". -About Saks Afridi- Saks Afridi is a multi-disciplinary artist living in New York City. Saks’s art practice is two-fold: Collaborative and Personal. His personal work investigates the predicaments and ..read more

In this episode, we speak with video artist Kameron Neal who uses his body and personal narratives to explore intimacy and to challenge socio-political ideologies. -About Kameron Neal- Kameron Neal is a queer Black video artist, designer, and performance-maker based in NYC. Forbes described Kameron’s solo exhibition at Detroit Art Week 2019 as “an absurd escape that simultaneously provokes and entertains.” Kameron is currently in residence at CultureHub, The Public Theater’s Devised Theater Working Group, and the Bemis Center. As a Resident Artist at Ars Nova, he co-created MukhAgni, an i ..read more

In this episode, SOTA host Gabriel Barcia-Colombo speaks with David Goodman, former VP of  Digital Development & Marketing at Sothebys about the role of media in the arts, his work at Sotheby's, his trajectory into the art world, and how art infiltrates many corners of everyday life. -About David Goodman- Experienced C-Suite executive who has spent 30+ years running divisions of global multi-media organizations, spearheading/overseeing growth, revenue, marketing, content creation, production, product/technology innovation/services, distribution and oversight of some of the worlds mos ..read more