Ari Melenciano

Ari Melenciano is an artist, technologist, researcher, and theorist whose work reveals the synergy between computation, cultural metacognition and transcendental expression. She is a frequent public speaker and guest lecturer at universities around the world, sharing her research on experimental and societally inquisitive uses of emerging technologies. She occasionally designs and teaches courses at New York University, The Pratt Institute’s Design School, Parsons School of Design of The New School and Hunter College’s Integrated Media Arts Program. Within her studio and research practice, she is currently designing epistemologies for artistic expression at the nexus of the collective consciousness and unconsciousness. She is also the founder of Afrotectopia, a cultural institution that is imagining, researching and building at the nexus of new media art, design, science and technology through a Black and Afrocentric lens. 

Previously, she was a technologist at Google's Creative Lab. She has held academic residencies at MICA, University of Denver's Clinic for Open-Source Arts, NYU Tisch School of the Arts and NYU ITP. Her work has been supported and published by Sundance, The New York Times, The Museum of the Future in Dubai, The Studio Museum of Harlem, New Museum, New Inc, Nokia Bell Labs, MIT Media Lab's Space Exploration Initiative, New York Magazine, Forbes, Pratt Institute ,The Ford Foundation, Pioneer Works, The Museum of Moving Image, The National Endowment for the Arts, Deem Journal, MoMA, NYU Future Imagination Fund, Guild of Future Architects, Eyebeam, New York Live Arts, The Laundromat Project, Onassis Foundation and more. She has consulted and juried for a variety of institutions including Apple, NYC Department of Education, Magnum Foundation, The Knight Foundation, IxDA NYC and Creative Capital. She's also published writing on A.I., Cultural Metacognition, Radical Technoculture for Racial Equity, Omni-Specialized Design Practices, Speculative Equitable Futures and more.