Rhizome, 235 Bowery, New York, NY (2025)

11/13/2025

Everyone at Rhizome was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Steve Kurtz, artist and founding member of the legendary Critical Art Ensemble (CAE).

Founded in 1987 in Tallahassee Florida, CAE was a collective of tactical media practitioners and activists whose work engaged biology, political activism, technology and performance art, in order to disrupt and critique institutional power. From “Flesh Machine,” their 1997 performance inviting visitors to submit DNA samples in order to assess the potential value of their bodies as commodities in the fertility market, to their collaboration with Gran Fury to stage “Cultural Vaccines,” which criticized U.S. policy on HIV; today CAE’s work remains fearless, and challenges us to think expansively about new ways of responding to the political structures around us.

“The electronic realm is not a metaphor; it is a lived environment where social struggle unfolds.“ -Steve Kurtz

Images:
1- Critical Art Ensemble, L-R: Steve Barnes, Ricardo Dominguez, Hope Kurtz, Steve Kurtz, and Dorian Burr, Tallahassee, FL, (1987)

2 - 3 spreads from“Electronic Civil Disobedience and other Unpopular Ideas” by Critical Art Ensemble, 1996

10/21/2025

Have you ever heard of an album you can’t stream, download or share? 👩‍💻🚫

In 2015, Wu-Tang Clan released only one copy of their seventh studio album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for $1 million, deleted the master files, put it on a CD, and placed it inside of a silver jewel-encrusted box with a wax Wu-Tang Clan seal. The terms established by the group—that it must remain private, free and non-replicable—meant that it could not be uploaded, streamed or downloaded online.

In doing so, the group hoped to raise its value to that of fine art, and inspire debates about the value of music in a world where streaming is so ubiquitous the very act tends to water down its value.

Fast forward to this May, at Rhizome’s 7x7 conference, co-presented by backslash and hosted at , where Spencer Harrison, Artistic Director of PleasrDAO, who purchased the album in 2021 and artist/designer Máuhan M. Zonoozy () asked: How do you experience an album that has only one copy in the world?

They conceived a few outlandish prototypes:
👠A shoe with a built-in subwoofer so you can feel the album “in your sole”
🪖A private listening helmet NASA-certified for space travel
☎️ 🏆And the winner: transforming a New York City phone booth into a private listening room.

Watch the full video at the link in bio, and learn more at Máuhan’s substack post, linked in our stories!

10/07/2025

On Wednesday, Rhizome will host an evening, closed-door hackathon for community members to explore and reflect on vibe coding, using Claude and Claude Code. Participants of all skill levels will work with mentors, learning about their practice and relationship with AI-assisted coding, and then have the opportunity to make their own software-driven projects while reflecting on questions offered by of .co : are you here to learn? play? fix? break? Participants and mentors will have the option of showing their work at Thursday’s VIbe Shift party.

A few slots still remain for hackathon participants. Mentor workshops include live-coding + vibe coding with ; ’s Scraping Public Data; generative art and data storytelling with .merence; deep coding with ; and one-shot browser games with – plus lots of cool stuff!

Sign up at the link in bio!

08/01/2025

Can the solar web invite us into a more intentional relationship with the internet? 🔍 ☀️

This was a question that guided our recent workshop series, “Solar Web in Schools,” funded by grants from Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and the New York City Cultural Development Fund.

Conducted in May and June of this year, these workshops invited students consider how the web can be used as a creative medium, while also drawing attention to the environmental costs of participating in digital culture and internet-based art practices.

One question we posed to the students was, how can we create more environmentally-friendly digital art? Students learned about the work of Solar Protocol—a network of solar-powered servers—wherein each server can only offer sporadic connectivity that is dependent on available sunshine, the length of day, and local weather conditions.

Finally, students learned how to transform their own drawings into “solar-friendly” digital artworks using ASCII, a character encoding standard that replaces characters with numbers. Our gallery of student works is now online (link in bio!)

🌧 Note that this website is hosted on Rhizome’s very own solar server, which is currently located in LA. As such, this website might go down during periods of cloudy weather!

✏️ Workshops were taught by Kayla Drzewicki (), Bri Griffin (.muein), and Diwa Tamrong.

🕸 Website design by Kayla Drzewicki with support from Mark Beasley

🤝 Special Thank you to Mark Beasley, Danica Newell, Solar Protocol, NYC CDF, Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Teiger Foundation, and our partner schools!

07/29/2025

Daniel Murray discusses “MelonLand,” the online art project and community they started in 2007, how Pete Seeger and folk music has influenced their philosophy on website making, and whether or not a “good web” exists, with Kristoffer Tjalve (.tjalve), in our latest Artist Profile. ✏️🖥️🗺️

[1] Daniel Murray, Melon’s home and the window to leave, 2016-2022. Screenshot, https://melonking.net/melon?z=/home.

[2] Daniel Murray, An Everyone Site page showing communally written rules for the web, 2024. Screenshot. https://everyone.melonland.net/rules.

[3] Daniel Murray, The crows island on display at Melonland, 2017-2024. VR Screenshot. https://melonking.net/melon?z=/vr/.

[4] Daniel Murray, An ozwomp encountering the The Big Ozwomp, 2023. Screenshot. https://ozwomp.online.

[5] Daniel Murray, Melonland eParty rendering every image on the site at once, 2025. Screenshot. https://melonking.net/melon?z=/hidden/million

06/17/2025

Rhizome is spreading!! 🫚🌱

With our old friends at , we’re teaming up with .ny—a major new venue for media art opening on New York’s Lower East Side in 2026 –to develop joint programming and expand public access to our archives.

As part of this partnership, we’re working with EAI on curating periodic exhibitions and establishing a free, public-facing space within Canyon dedicated to accessing the histories of time-based and born-digital art that Rhizome and EAI steward. We hope this can be a starting point for archival collaborations with other institutions globally!

Just a few blocks away, our primary home remains at the , where we’ve been an affiliate in residence since 2003 and anchor members of since its founding. We look forward to growing our work there as the museum reopens this fall with its new OMA-designed expansion!!!

06/03/2025

come shop 🛒 our office clear out sale, next Monday June 9, 6-8pm! we’ll have:

🖥 lightly used equipment- projectors, wall mounts, speakers, extension cords

👗 rhizome merch: internet hats, baby onesies, prints, ephemera from past rhizome exhibitions

📚books , and more ♾️

please rsvp so we can have a sense of headcount and so that you can easily access our building! Link in bio

05/22/2025

The final episode of Let’s Play Majerus G3 📽️, “Atomic Kittens” is here! ⛳️

For its last episode, takes us on a silent tour of the folder “liverpool” on Majerus’ desktop, containing working files, sketches and exhibition plans for an unrealized show at the Tate Liverpool.

🖌️🖌️🖌️

Let’s Play Majerus G3 📽 is the second installment of ArtBase Anthologies, and is presented in partnership with Cory Arcangel and the Majerus Estate . All five episodes are on Cory’s YouTube, and on rhizome.org (link in bio)

05/15/2025

The Rhizome World Benefit Gala gathered some of the digital world’s finest!

Inside the Rhizome World exhibit at on May 9th, Rhizome held a gala celebration honoring Aaron Swartz (in memoriam), Taryn Simon, Aurelia Harvey (.harvey.studio) and Michaël Samyn (.art), as iconic artists and champions of new media art, while gathering the Rhizome community to celebrate.

A full-fledged gala with cocktails, a little glamour, and, of course, some of digital-born’s biggest supporters, benefit guests included artists pioneering software art since its inception, technologists rethinking the possibilities of the internet, new media collectors, and art lovers integral to continuing Rhizome’s mission.

Beginning right after the conclusion of this year’s 7x7.legal symposium, guests headed to a chartered ferry crossing the river to attend the benefit, which featured live performances, a gallery tour, and a fundraiser for Rhizome’s artist fellowship grants, future events, and archival efforts preserving the best of digital art for the next generation.

Here’s some BTS of one of online art’s biggest nights.

05/06/2025

Seven on Seven (7x7) is just days away on Friday, May 9 at Cornell Tech.

* 7 groundbreaking artists
* 7 leading legal minds
* 24 hours to create something entirely new
* 1 day to present their ideas live

Don’t miss the 2025 legal edition line-up including:

Lauren Lee, (), artist, and founder of ()
Máuhan Zonoozy (), Global Head of Innovation at Spotify, entrepreneur, and conceptual artist
Darren Bader (), conceptual artist and software designer
Amy Adler, Emily Kempin Professor of Law at NYU School of Law
Sonia Katyal, American legal scholar, professor, and Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Research at UC Berkeley School of Law

A limited number of tickets remain — secure yours now and experience what happens when law, art, and technology converge in real-time. If you can’t join us in person — join us via Zoom. Link in bio.

🪩 P.S. Join us for the Rhizome Benefit after 7x7 — a gathering of artists, researchers, technologists, and thinkers honoring the luminaries shaping Rhizome’s history.

05/06/2025

The Rhizome World Benefit Gala on May 9 at celebrates the luminaries who have deeply impacted digital culture.

The ticketed benefit follows 7x7 2025, Rhizome’s annual art-tech collaboration program, which will be held from 12-5 pm. Attendees will take a chartered ferry near this year’s 7x7 symposium venue at Cornell Tech to the gala at at 5:30 pm. The dinner takes place at 6 pm in conjunction with Rhizome World, a month-long immersive exhibition of software art. Rhizome World features newly commissioned installations and conserved digital pieces, including artworks by each honoree.

This year’s honorees include respected artists and visionaries:

Taryn Simon, Aaron Swartz (In memoriam), Auriea Harvey (.harvey.studio), and Michaël Samyn (.art), who’ve made innumerable contributions through their personal works and continued support of digital-born culture throughout their careers.

This year’s gala is also possible through generous support from MSCHF, Fred Benenson (), Dorothy Chou, Jehan Chu () & Jeannie Vu, Lisa Roumell & Mark Rosenthal.

Founded in 1996, Rhizome is a prolific organization that can be traced in tandem with the history of the internet. Our programming takes place online + in partnership with institutions & venues globally– with our supporting organizations, Digital Counsel (.xyz) and the New Museum () in NYC. We support digital art research & production, and we conserve and maintaining access to the important works pertaining to the history of digital art.

The program will include a dinner, live performances, artworks on view, as well as a paddle raise fundraiser whose proceeds go to Rhizome’s yearly artist commissions and microgrants.

Join the celebration of digital-cultures most renowned artists and thinkers
at the Rhizome Gala, May 9, at WSA, from 6-10 pm
(Tickets available for purchase through link in bio)

04/23/2025

Rhizome World at is imagining alternative networks for navigating the digital realm.
Focusing on the theme “Another Internet Is Possible” from April 25–27, learn about visions of the digital that go beyond today’s dominant platforms from expert technologists and artists building possible futures.

Exploring software, social media platforms, and online communities that are decentralized, humanistic, as well as innovative.

Join the discussion with author Mike Pepi discussing his new book Against Platforms about what went wrong during “the digital utopia” and how to fix it; grab a copy of Lori Emerson’s () groundbreaking Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook or revisit the groundbreaking interactive documentary, CLOUDS.

Take a peek into what’s possible.
🟢𝑅𝒽𝒾𝓏𝑜𝓂𝑒 𝒲𝑜𝓇𝓁𝒹 @ WSA
Free Exhibition & Events
Entire Exhibit on Display from April 18–May 11
Link in bio.

Rhizome

11/13/2025

10/21/2025

10/07/2025

08/01/2025

07/29/2025

06/17/2025

06/03/2025

05/22/2025

05/15/2025

05/06/2025

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04/23/2025

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