Commiserate chicago
Co-founder and Co-organizer
Our team: Jas Brooks, Ashlyn Sparrow, Snow Xu, Jiaqi Zhang, Li Yao, Grace Kang
A team of seven collaborators connected through the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and began working together in late 2019. The group formed around shared concerns about the conditions of emerging media practices and the need for a space centered on the sensory and emotional dimensions of technological work.
The festival took place over two days at the University of Chicago’s MADD Center, featuring 29 artworks along with workshops, talks, screenings, performances, and keynotes. The program brought together a wide range of experimental media—including VR, interactive systems, kinetic sculpture, olfactory games, and artist books—and served as a platform for early- and mid-career artists to exchange strategies for sustaining their practices. Held in the depth of the Chicago winter, Commiserate emphasized collective warmth and mutual support within a challenging artistic landscape.
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The first Commiserate Chicago 2020 media art festival took place February 29 - March 1, 2020, in Chicago, USA, at the University of Chicago’s Media Art, Data, and Design Center.
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Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and wondered: “Am I at the periphery of new media art?” Are you tired of the pseudo-futuristic technofetishism of major art and tech festivals? Do you feel stranded in scattered art scenes during the Chicago winter? We invite artists and researchers based in and out of Chicago to reflect on the state of media art and the life and survival of media arts in a city remote from any major art market. We are offering the entirety of the University of Chicago’s MADD Center space, which includes ambulatory screens, more than 50 computers, a VR hub, fabrication facilities, and a large video wall among many other resources.
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