Urgent Inquiries with Bahareh Khoshooee and Xin Xin, moderated by Julia Kaganskiy
Seating will be available to guests who RSVP’d, but as we have sold out tickets for the evening, there will be standing room to accommodate extra guests. Make sure you and your friend check in at the associate counter at the book store. Stools may be available on a first come first serve basis!!!
________
This November, we are thrilled to present a duo of conversations, Urgent Inquiries, hosted at our friend’s Secret Riso Club, as the introduction to our new 2025/2026 season of programming, Speculating on Plurality. We invited a group of Eyebeam alum artists whose works encapsulate the heart of the program’s intensive thematic focuses, as they start to help us think about the following questions through the season:
We are more digitally connected than ever, but are we sharing realities?
What do these disparate and parallel realities invite us to consider urgently?
In an era of technofeudalism, is it possible to escape technology’s deployment in state surveillance?
Do our most popular technologies have an impulse towards creating sameness?
And, what is required to move us towards a pluralistic commons—a space that might hold our multitudes and their potentials towards shared futures?
The themes of this upcoming season of the program, Speculating on Plurality, reflect the ongoing inquiry and work of the alum community, and its concerns regarding hyper-contemporary issues that we collectively think and act through that we care about most in the arts, tech, and society.
The second iteration of Urgent Inquiries welcomes Eyebeam alum artists Bahareh Khoshooee, whose use of technology captures the slippier qualities of diasporic geographies, surveillance, and erasure, and Xin Xin of Processing Foundation, whose work in creating alternative digital spaces of social engagement is based on the principles of data transparency, community practice, and consent.
Artist bios
Bahareh Khoshooee is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, feminist activist, and the co-founder of two collectives –Blockbusters (an international group of New Media artists), and █████ (a network of feminist artists, activists, and technologists). Born in Tehran, Iran, Khoshooee uses time-based strategies in presenting work that fuses 3D environments, video projection mapping, sculpture, performance, and sound. Her practice explores the complex dualities of technology: its oppressive role in surveilling, documenting, and criminalizing BIPOC bodies, and its radical potential for futurity and alternative solidarities. Her work unearths how technology mediates the intimate and collective experiences of grief, violence, and memory, reclaiming these spaces as arenas for liberation, and reimagined futures.
Xin Xin (林心瑜) is a Taiwanese-American cultural producer exploring community-driven technology in creative and educational spaces. As creator of TogetherNet and co-editor of the Critical Coding Cookbook, Xin advocates for liberatory software culture through the reclamation and subversion of power dynamics embedded within digital systems. Born in Taipei and raised in Massachusetts, Xin brings a multicultural perspective to questions of technology and sovereignty. Identifying as non-binary and anarcho-feminist, their genre-nonconforming practice weaves together art, education, organizing, and technological experimentation—interrogating who controls technology, who benefits from it, and the power of collectives in building a more equitable digital future. An Eyebeam Rapid Response for a Better Digital Future Fellow and Sundance Art of Practice Fellow, Xin's work has been exhibited internationally at Ars Electronica, Human Resources, Z/KU, and Kunstverein Wolfsburg. They have been a resident artist at MASS MoCA, Santa Fe Art Institute, and Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art. Xin works with the Processing Foundation to support open-source software for artists and teaches as Assistant Professor of Interaction and Media Design at the New School, where they work with emerging practitioners to develop critical and socially-engaged approaches to technology and design.
Moderator bio
Julia Kaganskiy is a curator and cultural strategist working across art, science, and technology. She is passionate about interdisciplinary collaboration, developing new cultural models, and re-imagining cultural institutions as inclusive spaces for artistic experimentation. Since starting her career in 2008, she has been recognized as a leading voice in art and technology and helped launch several groundbreaking programs in the field, including The Creators Project (VICE/Intel) and NEW INC (New Museum).
Her curatorial practice explores the potential of art as a key interlocutor of emerging science and technology. Until recently, she served as Curator-at-Large at LAS Art Foundation in Berlin, where she oversaw the Interspecies Future research stream and co-edited the book Interspecies Future: A Primer (Distanz, 2024). As an independent curator, she has worked with 180 Strand (London, UK), Matadero Madrid (Madrid, ES), Espacio Fondación Telefónica (Madrid, ES), Borusan Contemporary (Istanbul, TY), Science Gallery (Dublin, IE), Barbican Centre (London, UK), Eyebeam Center for Art & Technology (New York, US), Mana Contemporary, (Jersey City, US), Feral File and many others.
Accessibility note
Secret Riso Club is located on a ground-floor storefront, with a restroom on the same level. A ramp is located at the entrance.
Acknowledgment
The pair of in-person Eyebeam alumni conversations is made possible through our friends at Secret Riso Club!
Covid guidelines
While masks are not required, they are available to all guests, and mask-wearing is encouraged. If you are feeling sick or have tested positive for COVID-19, we ask that you please refrain from participating in Eyebeam x Secret Riso Club programs to care for fellow community members.
Transportation
Secret Riso Club is located in the heart of Bushwick neighborhood, across the street from Fermi Playground, and two blocks down from Maria Hernandez Park.
The closest subway stations include the M train off of the Central Avenue or Knickbocker Avenue stops, which is approximately a 5-to-8-minute walk, and the L train at the Jefferson Street stop, approximately a 12-minute walk.
The closest bus stops are the B60 at the Wilson Av/Starr St stop and the B54 at the Myrtle Av/Evergreen Av stop.