A project incubated by ThoughtWorks Arts and an initiative originally co-founded by ThoughtWorks Arts Director Andrew McWilliams, have each independently won Prix Ars Electronica awards in 2021.

The Prix Ars Electronica is the world’s most time-honored award in electronic and interactive art, with prize ceremonies going back more than 30 years, alongside showcases at the famed Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria.

ThoughtWorks Arts’ Simulacra & Similitude: Synthetic Media Residency began in the summer of 2020. Due to Covid-19 it was entirely remote with Nouf working from her studio in Brooklyn, New York and James from his studio in Seattle, Washington.

Nouf Aljowaysir’s residency developed Salaf [Arabic: سلف , ancestor] (2020), an ongoing project investigating the cultural transmission of ideas and worldviews across generations.

We are excited to announce that MIT Open Doc Lab has selected director Ellen Pearlman to be an MIT 2021 Fellow starting this spring.

Ellen will join a group of distinguished scholars, artists, creative technologists, and journalists - all of whom are exploring new forms of storytelling through emerging technologies and sciences.

Art-A-Hack’s Special Edition COVID-19 2020 “Dancedemic” had its world premiere as part of The 39th Annual Battery Dance Festival.

The live-streamed event was a two-part performance featuring world-renowned dancers from Battery Dance’s immigrant fellowship program, Hussein Smko (Iraq/Kurdistan/US) and Razvan Stoian (Romania/US).

“The Grid: Exposure - Art + Tech + Policy Days” explores innovative ways to reconnect the world in our current state of isolation. We are inviting you to the first-ever edition of “Blurring Borders” from September 10-13, 2020.

Mobilizing artists, technologists, and policymakers from around the world, Exposure reimagines interdisciplinary and international collaboration to overcome deadlock and siloed thinking.

New residents Nouf Aljowaysir and James Coupe selected for the residency in early spring, have begun their Synthetic Media Residencies set to span the summer 2020 season.

Due to COVID-19, James and Nouf will both work remotely on projects from their respective studios in Seattle and Brooklyn.

Dear Friends: We hope you and yours are staying safe and healthy as we all face and adjust to the new realities of life.

Many of us in arts communities are dealing with canceled and postponed events, exhibitions, conferences - work that constitutes much of our livelihoods. We have compiled a selection of resources for artists below, which we hope you may find useful.