Lavin Exclusive Speaker
How is technology reshaping our relationship to time, memory—even death? Gabriel Barcia-Colombo’s interactive artworks ask bold questions about what it means to live, and die, in today’s frenetic world. From massive installations that awaken us to the present moment, to his Hereafter Institute—a project that lets us experience digital memorials—he is making vital new rituals for modern life.
A new media artist, NYU professor, and TED Senior Fellow, Gabriel Barcia-Colombo’s work focuses on collections, memorialization, and the act of leaving a digital imprint for the next generation. He makes interactive art: vending machines that dispense human DNA; blenders that “blend” the miniature people inside them; perfumes that smell like famous banned books. In his talks, he describes his kaleidoscopic work, and how film, electronics, live actors, and biomaterials can work together to create inimitable art that plays on our culturual need to chronicle, preserve, and wax nostalgic. His work has been celebrated in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, L.A. Weekly, and many other publications.
Barcia-Colombo was recently commissioned to be the first digital artist to show work at the New Fulton Terminal Stop with the MTA Arts & Design program in New York City. His work has been featured in the Volta, Scope, and Art Mrkt art fairs as well as Grand Central Terminal and the New York Public Library. He recently received an Art and Technology grant from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where he created “The Hereafter Institute,” a company that questions the future of death rituals and memorials and their relationship to technology.
Barcia-Colombo served as a member of the artist advisory board at the New York Foundation for the Arts, as well as the education committee member at the Museum of Art and Design. He is also a Senior TED Fellow. He is the founder of Bunker.nyc, a pop-up gallery showcasing emerging art made with technology. Barcia-Colombo is a New York Foundation for the Arts grant awardee and faculty member at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.