Neuromantics is a one-day event on December 12 that turns a Soho loft into a playable ecosystem of artist-made games, XR works, live interfaces, and moving-image pieces. Running from 4 - 11 PM at 393 Broadway, 2nd Fl, the event builds on the structural logic found in Neuromancer, the 1984 novel by William Gibson, where meaning is shaped by how people move through networks. Neuromantics approaches this idea through gaming. Works shift, open, or change state based on human action and interaction.
Across the space, artists create environments with their own systems and rules. Some projects are open. Others must be unlocked through participation, collaboration, or exchange. Each work becomes a worldbuilding exercise that depends on the visitor to operate, complete, or reveal it.
The participating artists include Aurora Mititelu, Erin Robinson + Jamie Turner, Jackie Liu, Jonah King, Tee Topor, Ian Cox, Hiba Ali, Pearlyn Lii, Chia Amisola, Shashwath Santosh + Nithin Eluvathingal, Ian Cox, Tommy Martinez, Peter Nichols, the Cybernetics Image Library, the collective of Lois He, Vio Zhu, John Luo, Kaiyang Zhao.
The evening program (8 - 10 PM) includes a sequence of live sets by Ana Roman, Raven Tao (with visuals by Yiou Wang) and MAYSUN that activate the space with audio interfaces, DIY instruments, and experimental sound.
Work is available via Metalabel, inviting the audience to navigate a new system of play, access, and interaction.
This event is co-organized by Underground Art And Design and Danielle Paterson and supported by FLORA, a professional creative workflow system that brings text, image, and video models together through a node-based intelligent canvas. Built for designers, filmmakers, agency teams, and art students, FLORA offers a powerful and controllable AI toolkit that aligns with our shared commitment to thoughtful, artist-driven innovation.
In the feedback loops of machine learning, certain bodies, cultures, and ways of knowing are made visible, distorted, or erased. Like ghosts—excluded yet ever-present—they haunt the machine. They slip through algorithmic blind spots, bend systems’ logic, and disrupt with glitches and ruptures that unsettle computational control.
But ghosts don’t just haunt—they rewire. They assert presence, reframe meaning, and speak in forms the system was never trained to understand. Through cracks in the loop, they reemerge as designers of new imaginaries for themselves and for the communities the system failed to see.In this open call, we welcome artists, designers, technologists, researchers, writers, worldbuilders, and collectives whose work critically engages AI and algorithms and resonates with this statement.
A two-part panel series exploring speculative technofutures, AI ethics, and cultural agency.
It unfolds across two distinct events:
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an in-person session in New York City led by Liminal, and
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a global online conversation co-hosted with Parsons School of Design.
We are interested in works that:
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Grapple with the ethical, ecological, and socio-political harms of AI (e.g. labor exploitation, environmental damage, algorithmic traps, IP theft, misinformation).
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Investigate AI as an agent of transformation, particularly in the hands of alienated or marginalized communities.
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Embody queer, feminist, decolonial, ecological, and non-human perspectives on agency and collaboration.
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Offer tools, prompts, creative methodologies, or speculative frameworks for working with AI in accessible, non-extractive, or playful ways.
Panelists will be selected from the general open call or based on invitations to present their work and engage in dialogue with our public attendees. The venue for the event in New York City will be announced in September.
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Held in-person alongside the NYC panel talk, this interactive session invites participants to co-create speculative visions and toolkits for AI as a collective, liberatory force.
Following UAAD’s previous formats—Alt-Alterity and Matrix of the Not-Yet—artists selected for the virtual exhibition Ghost in the Feedback Loop will receive a text-based interview of 6–8 questions focused on their work and practice.
In addition to featured artworks and interviews, the publication will include:
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Highlights from the panel discussions
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Creative strategies, prompts, and outcomes from the community workshop
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Photo documentation of the in-person event
The publication will be released digitally, with potential limited physical editions. Conceived as a living archive, it will evolve with the event series and be published on both the UAAD website and Metalabel after the series concludes.
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NYC Event
A one-day event held in NYC including three parts:
Reclaim: In-person Panel
This panel brings together artists and cultural practitioners who refuse the default narratives of AI as neutral or inevitable.
We’re looking for voices reclaiming AI from systems of extraction—surveillance, optimization, bias—and instead using it to tell stories of resistance, care, and agency, challenge norms, and build liberatory futures.
Reimagine: Speculative Workshop
This workshop, facilitated by Liminal, invites artists and designers to co-create speculative artifacts that reflect their visions of preferable AI futures. Through guided prompts and collective making, participants will explore speculative visions of AI that reimagine roles for AI within creative practice. Outputs from the session will feed into the TechnoMirage publication and serve as a toolkit for envisioning what else AI could be, as a collective, liberatory force.
Rewire: Live Performance
To close the NYC gathering, we’re planning an intimate set of audiovisual performances.
We welcome artists working with sound, movement, live visuals, or other real-time media whose works distort, disrupt, or reframe machine logic—through noise, failure, feedback, improvisation, or other interventions—are especially encouraged.
Global Programs
A Permanent Virtual Exhibition on New Art City
In the feedback loops of machine learning, certain bodies, cultures, and ways of knowing are made visible, distorted, or erased. Like ghosts—excluded yet ever-present—they haunt the machine. They slip through algorithmic blind spots, bend systems’ logic, and disrupt with glitches and ruptures that unsettle computational control.
But ghosts don’t just haunt—they rewire. They assert presence, reframe meaning, and speak in forms the system was never trained to understand. Through cracks in the loop, they reemerge as designers of new imaginaries for themselves and for the communities the system failed to see.In this open call, we welcome artists, designers, technologists, researchers, writers, worldbuilders, and collectives whose work critically engages AI and algorithms and resonates with this statement.
Broadcasted globally and co-hosted with Parsons School of Design, this virtual conversation centers on the future of creative labor in an AI-saturated world. Artists, designers, and technologists will share how they’re designing with AI—grappling with authorship, ethics, and access while inventing new collaborative processes. The panel invites global participants to reflect on the shifting role of creative agency in shaping technocultural futures.
Following UAAD’s previous formats—Alt-Alterity and Matrix of the Not-Yet—artists selected for the virtual exhibition will receive a text-based interview of 6–8 questions focused on their work and practice.
In addition, the publication will include highlights from the panel discussions and outcomes from the speculative workshop.
The publication will be released digitally, with potential limited physical editions. Conceived as a living archive, it will evolve with the event series and be published on both the UAAD website and Metalabel after the series concludes.
Selected artists have been notified by email. Applicants who do not hear from us by 23:59 ET on August 12 have not been selected.
Jul 8 — Open call launches (For Virtual Exhibition, Publication, Panel and Live Performance)
Aug 8 — Open call closes at 23:59 EDT
Aug 12 — Selection Results Notified
Sep 8 — Virtual Exhibition OpensSep 21 — TechnoMirage IRL @Index (120 Walker St., NYC)
The following events’ date and location will be announced in a separate post:
Mid Oct — Virtual Panel (Global )
We are calling for artists, designers, technologists, researchers, writers, worldbuilders, and collective practitioners from any discipline or background.
All mediums welcome, including but not limited to:
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Generative art and design
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Code-based experiments
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Narrative fiction
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Poetry
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AI-assisted Photography and film
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Animation
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Interactive web pieces
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Sound art
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Game Design/ Virtual Environements / World-building
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Mixed/hybrid forms
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All selected participants will receive:
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A feature on UAAD’s website, reaching audiences in 103 countries
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Dedicated social media features (reels + feed posts)
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A spotlight in our weekly newsletter (6,000+ subscribers)
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Media exposure through distribution on major U.S. platforms
Additional benefits per program:
Virtual Exhibition
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Inclusion in a permanent online exhibition (New Art City)
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A text-based interview published in the TechnoMirage publication
There is no application fee. If selected, a $65 participation fee per artist or collective helps cover the production of the virtual exhibition (platform fees, documentation, and editorial work).
In-Person Panel (NYC)
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Artist honorarium ($75-100)
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Live conversation and networking opportunity with NYC audiences
Virtual Panel (Global)
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Artist honorarium ($75-100)
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Broadcasted globally and co-hosted with Parsons School of Design
Live Performance:
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Artist honorarium (ticket revenue share)
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Photo and Video Documentation
If you have any questions regarding the application, please email hello@uaad.art.
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Exhibition Artists
Cybernetics Library
Curated Cybernetics Library
Pearlyn Lii
InfiniteMother_v2.0, Video
Jonah King
Honey Fungus, VR Film
Ian Cox
Automated Tarot Machine (ATM), Interactive Installation
Hiba Ali
Watering the Somatic Oasis, VR Installation
Peter Nichols
Crude Oil, Video Game
Aurora Mititelu
Abel & I, Interactive Installation
Tee Topor
Ostensorium for the Extremely Online & Monastic Computer, Interactive Installations
Lois He, Vio Zhu, John Luo, Kaiyang Zhao
Rising River, VR Game
Jackie Liu
Fishin’ for Average Caucasian Boyfriends & Relational Dance Dance, Video Games
Erin Robinson
Dowsing the Walbrook, Interactive Installation
Chia Amisola
Piano Piece, Interactive Installation
Shashwath Santosh, Nithin Eluvathingal
Timelines, Mobile Application
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Tommy Martinez
Frequency-Links, Interactive Installation
Skulptor (Ana Roman)
Audio-Visual Performance
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Yiou Wang + Raven Tao
Audio-Visual Performance
MAYSUN
Sound Performance
Curators
Danielle Paterson
Danielle Paterson is a Toronto born, London and New York based art tech curator, art advisor, and researcher. She curates world-builders and transient creators who navigate subcultures, digital mythologies, and spiritual frameworks to envision alternate realities and collective futures. Through producing exhibitions, books, and other arts programming, she explores the spaces between the physical and metaphysical, online and offline—interrogating how the internet reshapes our inner worlds, collective memory, and systems of belief. Her work also considers how emerging art markets and platforms can become more accessible, transparent, and artist-driven.
Amy Xiaofan Jiang
Amy Xiaofan Jiang is a designer, artist, and curator exploring technology, speculative futures, and collective world-building. She founded Underground Art and Design (UAAD) in 2022, producing virtual and in-person exhibitions, panels, performances, and workshops. Her work builds participatory infrastructures for experimental communities, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and international collaboration.
Date & Time:
DEC 12, 4 - 11 PM
(Live Sets 8 - 10 PM)
Location:
393 Broadway, 2nd Fl, Soho, NYC
