So do yourself a favor: Follow their residency open calls. Read their archives (they’re free). Donate if you can. And the next time you see a piece of tech art that makes you uncomfortable in the right way—tip your hat to the eyebeam.
If you’ve ever watched a glitch artist manipulate a CRT television, seen a speculative design project about surveillance capitalism, or wondered who funded that wild AI-generated installation at your local museum—chances are, Eyebeam’s fingerprints are all over it. Founded in Brooklyn in 1997 (before "tech" was a dirty word and when "new media" still meant CD-ROMs), Eyebeam is the OG residency and production studio for artists who work with technology. Think of it as a hybrid: part MIT Media Lab, part scrappy artist studio, part public gallery. eyebeam
When an Eyebeam fellow makes a camera that refuses to record faces, or a chatbot that only lies, or a thermostat that demands to know why you’re touching it—they’re not being whimsical. They’re stress-testing the world we’re about to live in. Eyebeam isn’t a museum. It’s not an accelerator. It’s a shield and a workshop . And right now, as generative AI floods our feeds and surveillance becomes the default, we need their kind of stubborn, joyful, critical weirdness more than ever. So do yourself a favor: Follow their residency open calls