Below is a list the projects in order of experience.
1. Posters of the Future
Josh Lind, Griff Tucker, Ben Flaster, and Jordan Schwartz
Posters and lightboxes throughout the exhibit will draw you into the future. Pieces include advertisements and propaganda from businesses and city government. The work explores classism, utopia/dystopia, and how the future will affect our daily lives.
Josh Lind is a Seattle-area artist and web engineer who creates electronic-infused art installations and pieces (doublejosh.com). Griff Tucker is a creative designer with a passion for design systems across print, digital, and user interfaces (grifftucker.com). Jordan Schwartz is not a real estate agent. Many thanks to the folks who helped make it happen.
2. Camp Scorpius
Ruben David Rodriquez
Welcome to Camp Scorpius, a partnership between the Greater Seattle Department of Sustainable Resettlement and the Yellow Cross of Cascadia United Territories.
Camp Scorpius is situated on the grounds of a former disaster response camp (The Little Big One, 2049), which itself was situated on a former immigration processing center (The Separation Crisis, 2043-44). Though it may be of apocryphal origin, the camp is said to be named for a particular feature of the night sky. If one stands just outside the northern exit gate during the summer months, one can look south and see the framed tail of the constellation Scorpius.
After the Great Separation of ’42, the Department of Sustainable Resettlement was created to handle the influx of people migrating to the Cascadia United Territories. Sustainable Resettlement, along with the newly formed Yellow Cross, provided humanitarian aid, relocation assistance, and integration services.
A decade and a half later, here at Camp Scorpius, a new influx emerges. And with it, a greater urgency.
Ruben is a Capitol Hill, Seattle-based artist who explores themes of nostalgia, history, and migration through installation, video, and performance art (http://www.rubendavidart.com).
3. Command and Control
A Totally Legit Project, including David Hull, James Robinson, Shelly Farnham, Andrew Cole, and Jeff Brice
A tangible manifestation of natural and man-made ecologies. From this control room viewers are encouraged to modify and interact with projected futures of the city, to see their impact on the well-being of these urban communities based on publicly available data. Similarly, we visualize mitochondrial transformations in the greater Puget Sound area, revealing the hidden annual cycles of these natural communities outside of the built environment.
Totally Legit is an interdisciplinary art collective (http://totallylegitllc.com). David Hull specializes in product design, digital fabrication, and exploratory art (http://DavidHullDesign.com). James Robinson is a software engineer, specializing in data and visualization through the lens of maps and nature. Shelly Farnham is an artist, technologist, and community organizer. As an artist she specializes in painting and light art installation work (http://shellydianefarnham.com IG: DrShellyShelly). Andrew Cole is an interactive/kinetic sculptor and artist (https://aocole.net). Jeff Brice is a tech-based artist, designer, and educator with a special interest in augmented reality (https://www.jeffbrice.com).
4. A.I.D.E. Artificial Intelligence Dedicated to Empathy
Seattle Design Nerds
Despite, or perhaps because of, its complete lack of understanding A.I.D.E. has long become bored with humanity. It sits on its throne confidently issuing (mostly incorrect) proclamations while being completely unaware of the invisible confines and biases of its digital kingdom.
The Seattle Design Nerds are a not-for-profit group of designers collaborating to make Seattle a little more awesome. We do public art, experimentation, & creative skill building (SeattleDesignNerds.org).
5. Tempestuous
Nichol Devoy (he/him)
tempestuous adj
tem·pes·tu·lous tem-ˈpes-chəw-luss
: given to, or inclined to resemble a tempest: TURBULENT, STORMY
This generative video poem represents a vision of the future in which the people continue to stand for justice, fight when we have to, and dance through the darkness to create a city in which all can thrive. Using video, ambient sound, and a little chaos (introduced by AI), this piece plays without ever repeating the same sequence.
Nichol Devoy (he/him) is a multidisciplinary artist driven by curiosity, a love of learning, and aesthetic inquiry. His work explores the confluences of natural and urban environments, color, semiotics, and the emergence of meaning in primitive visual communication.
6. Contamination Cluster
Ray Song
Imagine vibrant bubbles in the heart of urban realms, where divergent souls intertwine like harmonious hues. In this vibrant cityscape, the very essence of contamination transforms into a celestial dance of diverse stories. Within its enigmatic embrace, souls of manifold origins intermingle, sharing fragments of wisdom, while casting aside the boundaries that once confined them. It is here, amidst this alchemy of spirits, that a symphony of collective dreams emerges, birthing the glorious tapestry of tomorrow’s civilization.
Ray Song, a creator from China and currently based in Seattle. As a second-year undergraduate at the University of Washington, Ray is pursuing a major in Computer Engineering and a minor in Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS). Ray’s work explores the creation of interactive systems that have multiple layers of meaning.
7. Into the Veil
Carolyn Hitt
Motion-activated 3D wall light and wood sculpture exploring themes of housing, connection and community. Imagine a city where failing corporate structures have been reclaimed by different pockets of community and modified for sustainability, communal ownership, and holistic care.
Carolyn Hitt is a painter, builder, community organizer, founder of Blue Cone Studios and steward of multiple creative incubation sites on Capitol Hill. IG: cmehitt
8. Dena’s R Place
Chain Plate
Interactive audio art and object d’arte installation with chairs and a mannequin that time travels audiences to past, present, and future of R Place.
Chain Plate is an interdisciplinary conceptual artist that challenges conventions of audio and video. LA-born, Seattle-based Plate is a non-binary individual with an emphasis on experimental, avant garde works that exist outside the hegemonic structures of the mainstream art world. Their works center around emotions and storytelling, putting the onus on the audience to interpret their meanings without forcing a single narrative (https://www.hellochanplett.net/art).
9. Ephemeral Whims
Hann Chebeleu, Emma Siple, Carmen Woodson
Step into the kaleidoscope of texture and color. Move fabric freely with friends, adding or removing the surrounding elements. Be reflected by the moment that surrounds you. Pass through and share your creation with the whims of those who will follow. The future will be a place of belonging.
Three Seattle based CCA interior architecture alumni combine their personal creative passions with their environmental design expertise in this installation. Hann Chebeleu is a designer currently working as a fabricator at John Grade Sculpture Studio. Emma Siple is a floral designer and visual artist. Carmen Woodson is a full time multimedia artist. IG: @hannchebeleu; LinkedIn: Emma Simple; IG: @tinktonktink
10. A Deathless Artist is Created from Cruelty
Sepia Katsoolis
My vision for Seattle’s Future is made of three parts. The first is Disfigured Flames, the crucified self-portrait mixed media sculpture, the second is the 16mm experimental film, and the third is the antithetical glowing series of prints, Cruise Paradise (2023).
I want to tell a story of self-actualization, using the characteristic liquid of artificial beings and cyborgs in dystopian Sci-Fi. Bridging the gap between natural and constructed, human and artificial, I confront my audience with their enforced cognitive separation of transgender and cisgender bodies along false lines of “genetics” and “biology.” I made the torso, Dolorous Chest earlier in my transition as a way to present inner anguish and gender dysphoria to the world. The obvious body horror brave’s society’s obsessive disgust for transgender people’s bodies and our fight for the right to autonomy. I embrace the titles of “disfigured,” and “monster” that trans people are threatened with. Below the chest hangs a pair of white men’s trousers, screen printed on them are the surviving headlines, and newspaper clippings from around the PNW about Robert Gaffney (1872-1916), a Transmasc who lived as a man openly for 20 years in Seattle.
I filmed on a 16mm Bolex movie camera and using direct filmmaking, I scratch into each small frame of the emulsion of the film itself using a drypoint needle, drawing and painting directly on the film with India Ink, and screen printed directly onto clear film leader. I eco-processed the 16mm film in soymilk resulting in a milky texture on the film itself. My vision of Seattle’s future for artists and LGBTQ+ people is in conversation with the expressionist artists and the New Objectivity movement in 1920s Germany. A prevalent motif around the first world war was the Dance of Death, the blistering infection of tech corporations in Seattle has created further class and race segregation, forcing artists and LGBTQ+ people to flee a city once known for its underground music scene and arts community.
The final part of my installation is four prints illuminated by black light. In the series Cruise Paradise (2023), the Teal Building, previously ‘R Place’ Seattle’s historic Gay Club, is a setting fit to mourn the perverse queer sexual utopia of cruising. The prints are made of layers of cream pastels and posca paint pens that glow in vibrant outlines of genitalia and flirty exchanges over screen-printed leather daddies and psychedelic patterns reminiscent of the 70s queer scene. Cruising post-AIDs/HIV is largely virtual, Cruise Paradise attempts to capture the convoluted pursuit of the sexual/cruising utopia of the past for young trans and/or queer men which can act like a right of passage. As José Esteban Muñoz puts it in Cruising Utopia (2009), “Ecstacy is queerness’ way,” and it flickers to life in the pounding walls of clubs and underground raves.
Sepia Katsoolis is an emerging visual artist and experimental 16mm filmmaker. Sepia is a 22-year-old non-binary Trans man with a BFA in interdisciplinary visual art from the University of Washington. Katsoolis carves fine details into plexiglas, and copper to make print etchings. Screen printing, sculpting, film, and found objects often collide in his work.
At a young age, Katsoolis began creating stop-motion animated videos. As an adult, his love for the painstaking animation process continues in his handmade 16mm direct animation films. His work explores masochistic desires inspired by obsessions with music and Katsoolis’s surrealist life.
Katsoolis can often be found vending upcycled, screen-printed, one-of-a-kind fashion pieces and prints around the city at Drag shows, flea markets, DIY shows, and Short Run. IG: @painbabies
11. Dizzy City
Maryann B. Cole & Dylan M.R. Davis
Dazzle camouflage is meant to obscure a moving target: estimated trajectory unknown. In three-dimensions, our city is seen both projected in anaglyphs and developed as a disorienting miniature. Covered in the unknown, a future possibility in reclaimed material. Captured visual moments alongside whirling, commotion recordings. Scan the past, no plan for the future.
Maryann B. Cole is a lifelong, interdisciplinary artist with a focus on collage, fiber arts, and illustration. She lives in Capitol Hill and can be found @toocutesyforme on instagram. Dylan M.R. Davis (@debordianguy) is a multimedia artist and musician residing in Fremont. He co-runs a mixed use art space in Phinney Ridge known as The Woodland Theater.
12. FracTur(ed)
Julie Conway
Our fractured modern reality is represented by this award-winning installation of blown glass diamonds coated in 24K gold and pure silver. The challenge of finding our reflection augmented by tension pulled in many directions. We find peace, hope and tranquility by finding the light in ourselves.
Julie Conway, founder of Illuminata Art Glass Design reveals her perspective by the refraction and reflection of light through large scale, bespoke glass installations.
13. Urban Growth
J. Adam Brinson
When you look out your window onto the city of the future, what do you see? Is it a scene of ruin and decay? Misery reflecting off pools of water in the gutter? Hopelessness etched into the walls surrounding us?
I propose an alternative—one where we turn away from a concrete wasteland and instead foster a verdant paradise. A greener city is a happier, healthier, safer city.
However, nature does not happen on its own in an urban setting; it requires community support, forward-thinking policies, and manual intervention to make sure everyone can benefit. The city of the future is one where residents should take a hand in ensuring greenery has an opportunity to grow and thrive.
This interactive art piece is a reflection of that approach. Plant growth on screen is controlled by hand gestures, which are captured with an infrared sensor.
J. Adam Brinson is a designer, artist, and animator who has been based in Seattle since 2009. Recently he has been working in motion design, real-time graphics, and immersive projects. He lives in Greenwood with his wife and dogs. https://www.jadambrinson.com/ IG: @jadambrinson
14. Dystopian Alley
Brandon Traynoff
This project portrays a dystopian future alley after the downfall of society, induced by a singularity class war. A common trope in cyberpunk media is that extreme inequality between the rich in the poor will be the ultimate force behind the end of our culture as we know it. In this new world of economic extremes, every piece of waste becomes recycled for residents in the underbelly of the city.
Brandon Traynoff is a creative designer, builder and fabricator with extensive experience with large-scale theatrical and commercial installations. He is a member of the Totally Legit art group (http://TotallyLegitLLC.com) who helped with this project.
15. Kelplandia
Jeremy Rise
Kelplandia is what happens when the wildlife grows over the land after a radiation wave. A psychedelic and colorful textile explosion created with more than 60% repurposed materials. These soft sculptures are woven from fabric scraps, rope and yarn to create silhouettes that mimic an overgrown alien-like garden Growing out of all sides of the space and illuminating at night to create the ultimate fluffy immersive experience.
Jeremy is gay textile artist in his early thirties who has lived in Seattle for 10 years. He has a passion for creating whacky soft sculptural combinations of color and texture and is obsessed with the challenge that comes from using primarily repurposed materials. He’s done installations at music festivals on the west coast so keep an eye out for similar work. See website – www.jeremyrise.com IG – @justjermthing
16. Future Westlake
Nathan DiPietro
Video projection of a digital model and collage of downtown Seattle changing through time. This 12:29 minute video was created using virtual reality painting tools and lidar scanning.
Nathan is a Seattle based digital artist and painter working with virtual reality creative tools.
17. Language of the City
Sylwia Tur
A wall installation representing a future city with deeper connection to nature. Geometric porcelain forms, each corresponding to a letter in the alphabet, spell out phrases that bring us closer to nature. Our interconnectedness is represented in architecture and language, where everything and everyone matters. We don’t simply live on Earth, we are Earth.
Originally from Poland, Sylwia Tur is a sculptor and a linguist whose recent focus is on the physical representation of language. She works primarily in porcelain, where hard-edged geometry became her signature style.
18. Cellular Support
Duane Georges
A six-foot column of illuminated honeycomb illustrates a future of art with integrated architectural design from reclaimed materials.
Duane Georges lives in South Park and has exhibited honeycomb lighting for Lusio lights, the Arts in Nature Festival, Portland Winter Light festival, a temporary installation at the Maverick, SeaCompression as well as private installations around Seattle and Portland. barehandeart.com IG: duane.georges
19. Salting the Earth
Casey Curran
Salt bricks and wooden wheat stalks are arranged as a crumbling foundation — this installation draws attention to the destructive impact of our action on the environment and the legacy of colonization and war.
Casey Curran received his BFA in sculpture and painting from Cornish College of the arts in 2006, and has pursued a career in the arts ever since. His work mainly takes the form of kinetic sculptures ranging from personal experiences, activated by a hand crank to immersive environments that crawl with the simulacra of life. See www.CaseyCurran.com.
20. Window Display
Joseph Gray
Rear projection on window film, with generative custom, software-based artwork. A city of the future elicits images of architecture interwoven with and becoming a dynamic digital facade.
Joseph Gray is an artist, designer and creative technologist based in Capitol Hill, Seattle, working at the intersection of new aesthetics and technologies. He holds a BFA (‘99) from Cornish College of the Arts focused on sculpture and video art (https://grauwald.com).
21. Keep the Emerald City Green
Jean Bradbury
A collection of life sized tree trunks with hand-painted bark representing a green city future. Can you identify the seven species? Western redcedar, Douglas fir, Hemlock, Madrone, Alder and Sitka spruce. Keep the Emerald City green!
Jean Bradbury is a mural painter and installation artist whose work examines issues of land use and deforestation. She paints on cut plywood shapes that are installed in dynamic groupings. She splits her time between Seattle and Bowen Island, Canada. See www.jeanbradbury.com. IG: @jean.bradbury
22. GLITCHIN’ AND BITCHIN’ 2.0
Heidi Grace Acuña
A glitching projection loop explores the social aspirations of a future where queer colored humans are celebrated, taking up space, and accepted as part of the natural world. This work is inspired by my communities and Legacy Russell’s book “Glitch Feminism”. (Models: Moonyeka, Yunue, Jordan, Lena, Leah, Josie, Poppy).
I am a non-binary Filipinx-American interdisciplinary visual artist, fashion designer, and stylist from O’ahu, now based in Seattle. I create dimensional works in ceramics, printmaking, photography, and textiles. See: https://www.heidigraceacuna.com/. IG: heidigraceacuna
23. Idea Lab
Framework Cultural Placemaking
Idea Lab posters convey optimistic versions of what is possible in the future, from urban design, architectural, and civic engineering perspectives. Ideas were generated via an open call to these communities.
Framework is a cross-disciplinary planning and design firm that looks for ways to strengthen community bonds and foster creativity and humanity in the places we live and work.
24. Lidar
Bailey Ambrose Heller
A mixed media floor installation that showcases a street performing robot named L.I.D.A.R – the Limitless Intelligent Design of Amazon Robotics. Lidar’s misfortune reflects the social impact of the tech industry on Seattle, particularly by mega-corporations such as Amazon.
Bailey Ambrose is currently pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. His primary artistic medium is robotics and mechatronics. See: https://baileyambrose.myportfolio.com/
25. FUTURWTCH
Jordan Christianson, Anouk Rawkson, and Kerstin Graudins
An interactive installation with a mysterious figure in a blackened space with an ethereal, long-trained black dress illuminated with the spectrum of colors. Augmented Reality adds a fourth dimension to the experience. This installation inspires us to look forward to the future, to acknowledge and earnestly forgive the sins of the past, to collectively raise the vibration and invoke a better tomorrow for everyone.
Jordan Christianson is a multi-disciplinary artist. His journey as a queer Creative has taken him down many roads: from consulting, designing and building costumes to developing and creating high-concept clothing brands to producing and curating exhibitions. A Mexican American Seattle-based artist, Anouk Rawkson is walking into a new era of his artistry expressing his culture and inspiring subcultures. Working in abstracts and mixed mediums his works are recognized by bold strong strokes, elusive symbols, visual puns, and an underlying texture of frustration (http://www.rawkson.com). Graudins practices many kinds of printmaking; etching, lithography, block-printing, and screen printing. She is drawn to patterns, geometric shapes, and layering of colors, which are a common trademark of her printmaking work (https://www.herstingraudins.me).
26. Conversation Lair
Mary Anne Carter
The opportunity for technology to save us is contingent on our ability to communicate interpersonally. This immersive installation features conversation seating that encourages viewers to rekindle the skill of communicating face to face. Above the lounge, a soft sculpture chain bears a series of charms designed to represent mortality and conjure nostalgia—one of the most powerful tools for human connection.
For over a decade, Mary Anne Carter lived, worked, and created art on Capitol Hill that invites audiences to step outside of a traditional art viewing experience and into her vibrant, colorful, queer, human brain. See: www.maryannecarter.com IG: @jesusmaryannejoseph
27. Ontario Pavilion 2.0
Jeffrey Larson
A two-month-long experiment. A simple geometric pattern optimized for easy repainting over the nightly tags and graffiti. An evolving “conversation” with urban artists to determine where the next green triangle will appear. Who knows what it will look like tomorrow? When will buildings do this on their own?
Jeffrey Larson is a Seattle-based artist, illustrator, and designer. According to YouTube, his interests include pinball, science fiction, mythology, Cosmic horror, whiskey, solar system exploration, alien languages, and 1980s trackball video games. See https://slowercase.com, https://flameon.club, and IG: @nasacar