Knight Foundation’s inaugural group of art and tech fellows includes Miami-based Cuban artist
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is setting its sights on bridging the gap between art and technology with a new fellowship for artists working with both. Among the inaugural class of five fellows, announced Wednesday, was Rodolfo Peraza, a Cuban-born multimedia artist based in Havana and Miami whose work involves data visualization of communication flows between Cuba and Miami.
The new Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship funds artists working with emerging technologies including virtual reality, digital media and artificial intelligence at a time when the pandemic has fed an increased appetite for digital content, said Victoria Rogers, vice president of arts for the Knight Foundation.
Fellows will receive an unrestricted grant for $50,000 to continue exploring the convergence of art and technology. Winners were nominated by artists and other professionals in the field, and later selected by a panel of judges from Knight, the nonprofit United States Artists and companies including Google. The fellowship comes from a three-year grant in partnership with United States Artists.
Peraza, writing via email, said he was excited and grateful for the opportunity.
“Since the beginning of my practice as an artist, I have been interested in the public space both physical and digital,” he wrote. “Through technology I have the means for exploring digital culture and the interfaces that connect humans and machines, which is a key piece of my work.”
The grant will allow him to create a third iteration of his ongoing project “Naked Link,” a conceptual series of prints that depict the invisible digital structures tying the U.S. to Cuba today.
The project’s first incarnation was “Pilgram 1.0.” Its title comes from a combination of the word “pilgrim” and “Instagram” and refers to the symbolic pilgrimage Peraza follows through the first five internet hotspots ever opened in Cuba. “Pilgram 1.0” offered free Wifi to those who came to the hotspots and allowed Peraza to gather anonymous digital footprints of their Internet traffic to find patterns, trends and correlations between Cubans and their internet usage.
Peraza’s work has been shown at the Pérez Art Museum Miami as well as internationally. In 2017 he created the MUD Foundation in Miami to promote the arts. The space offers educational programs including virtual reality camps for students. In 2009 he founded Fanguito, an artist-run space in Havana.
The four other fellows selected were Black Quantum Futurism, a collective from Philadelphia; Rashaad Newsome, an artist from Oakland; Sondra Perry, from Newark; and Stephanie Dinkins from Brooklyn.
This story was originally published February 17, 2021 at 10:56 AM.