Caribbean Art +Tech
Caribbean Artists Embrace Technology
Miami MoCAAD highlights Caribbean artists using technology to foster connections among dispersed Caribbean Diaspora communities. This newsletter features artists infusing an innovative spirit to create opportunities for social dialogue while keeping their Caribbean heritage front and center. Miami MoCAAD invites you to explore artists embracing technology in their practice.
Bonito Thompson (DonDada) Creates AR
Bonito Thompson, also known as Don Dada, is a digital artist who creates augmented reality experiences that blend art, technology, and his Jamaican culture. His work is influenced by Dancehall and represents aspects of Jamaican pop culture. Thompson has exhibited his work at shows in the Caribbean, and the United States, including Miami Art Basel. He has also collaborated with Grammy-winning artists, including Common, Damian Marley, Sean Paul, and Spice, as well as brands like Red Stripe, Genxs Carnival, and the Port Authority of Jamaica.
Caribbean Creators Share Cultural Traditions on the Blockchain
In a space usually dominated by North American and European artists and crypto art markets, Caribbean artists are making their voices heard in the NFT ecosystem. NFT Now Media, Inc. has partnered with Nicholas Huggins, artist and creative director from Trinidad and Tobago, to create a list of 20 Caribbean artists making waves in the “Digital Ocean” also called the internet.
Julien Creuzet Retraces African Ancestry
It was perhaps thinking about a figure who traverses time and space that inspired Creuzet’s avatar-like character that reappears and evolves in his exhibitions. It also appeared at Camden Art Centre in 2022, where Creuzet had a show after winning its Emerging Artist Prize during Frieze London. Martin Clark, director of Camden Art Centre, noted that the character was “pulling books from their head that formed a bibliography of diaspora andAfrican, and Caribbean writers which had informed Julien’s thinking” in one video work and “dancing a very particular Caribbean dance of protest, independence and resistance” in another. He will represent France at the Venice Biennale in 2024.
Listen to Miami MoCAAD's Caribbean inspired playlist
Digital Heritage, a virtual exhibition guest curated by GlitchOfMind, celebrates seven Afro-Caribbean artists' talent and creativity, and stories that would otherwise go untold on the blockchain. These incredible artists are paving the way for a new generation of Afro-Caribbean artists by breaking down barriers and challenging stereotypes, demonstrating that the NFT space is not just for one type of artist or particular perspective.
BLACK MOVEMENT LIBRARY
BML is a library for activists, performers and artists to create diverse XR projects--a space to research how and why we move, and an archive of Black existence. BML seeks to grow the community through performances, XR experiences, workshops, conversations, and tool-making. Viewers can engage with the BML’s virtual spaces here.
Miami MoCAAD = Art + Tech
New and innovative Miami MoCAAD will blend art and technology to create new community networks, New contexts for identities, and new ways to experience museums. In addition, the museum will create a space where artists' ideas, often overlooked and deemed "other," can take center stage.
~Alejandro de la Fuente & Marilyn Holifield
International Review of African American Art
Discover Miami MoCAAD’s interactive oral history mural experience, which merges art and technology to activate historical sites in Miami’s historic Black neighborhood of Overtown. Innovative and vibrant, Miami MoCAAD’s interactive oral history project, Veo Veo, I See I See, Mwen Wè Mwen Wè, presents murals that stand as new monuments to the resiliency, beauty, and legacies of Black Miami.
Miami MoCAAD = Art + Tech
Go to your phone to experience augmented reality and learn about the artists.
Artist Augmented Reality Experience
Artist Augmented Reality Experience is accessible when you access the website through a mobile phone or tablet with AR-enabled capabilities.
Use a well-lit space for the best experience.
For more visit https://murals.miamimocaad.org/artist-augmented-experience
Professor Lindsay Grace is Knight Chair in Interactive Media and associate professor at the University of Miami School of Communications. He is Vice President of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and recipient of the 2019 Games for Change Vanguard. Like Caribbean artists embracing technology, in "Black Game Studies" Professor Grace expertly articulates Black gamers' unique struggles and triumphs by weaving together historical context, theoretical frameworks, and personal anecdotes.
Lindsay Grace, Black Games Studies. Carnegie Mellon University
"Black Games Studies" explores the intersection of race, identity, and gaming, presenting a comprehensive examination of the experiences and contributions of Black gamers.
Lindsay Grace, Doing Things with Games: Social Impact Through Play
Professor Grace's guide to game design explores how games can be harnessed for positive social change and emphasize the importance of collaboration with the community of players in designing games for social impact. Throughout the book, he prompts readers to create games that promote inclusivity, empathy, and positive change.
The Miami MoCAAD Team
Miami MoCAAD Board Members:
Marilyn Holifield, Hans Ottinot, Monique Hayes, Sheldon Anderson,
Dr. Nelson L. Adams III
Volunteer-Museum Working Group Member
Michelle Johnson
Director of Interactive Media
Corbin Graves
Interns: Christian Allen, Jada Brown