Volunteering at GAFFTA has been an amazing experience thus far. Learning how art and technology converge and intersect has really got me excited about the future of art. At the same time, I’m venturing back into the philosophy and critical theory I read in college as well as exploring new text.
With the latest UpgradeSF meeting and attending GAFFTA exhibitions and artists talks (some of the most amazing minds gather at these events, by the way), I’m excited to be in the midst of re-defining new media arts and witnessing creativity and innovation amongst scientists, engineers, interactive designers, programmers, and coders. Art has always been used as a way to educate people and reflect what is current in society and culture.
Yes, people, a drawing on an iPad, an imagined landscape that requires participants in an alternate reality or virtual world, or a logographic system of language can all be artwork (the artist of course dictates what is produced and whether or not it is artwork BUT this is a whole different discussion).
So, tell me, what is your definition of New Media art?
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Dorothy R. Santos
Dorothy R. Santos (she/they) is a Filipino American writer, artist, and educator whose academic and research interests include feminist media histories, computational media, critical medical anthropology, technology, race, and ethics. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz as a Eugene V. Cota-Robles fellow. She received her Master’s degree in Visual and Critical Studies at the California College of the Arts and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of San Francisco. Her work as been exhibited at Ars Electronica, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the GLBT Historical Society.
Her writing appears in art21, Art in America, Ars Technica, Hyperallergic, Rhizome, Vice Motherboard, and SF MOMA’s Open Space. Her essay “Materiality to Machines: Manufacturing the Organic and Hypotheses for Future Imaginings,” was published in The Routledge Companion to Biology in Art and Architecture. She is a co-founder of REFRESH, a politically-engaged art and curatorial collective and serves as the Executive Director for the Processing Foundation. She is an advisor for Brooklyn-based arts and tech organization POWRPLNT and Bay Area-based arts organization slash arts.
dorothy r. santos 
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