Ari J. Melenciano is an artist and cultural researcher working with perception, time, consciousness, and cybernetics as materials.
She has taught courses in new media technologies, design, critical theory, and culture at institutions including New York University, Pratt Institute, Hunter College, and Parsons School of Design. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Venice Biennale, Sundance Film Festival, and the Museum of the Future in Dubai.
Melenciano is the founder of
Afrotectopia, a social institution dedicated to cultivating and Black imagination and culture while at the intersection of art, design, and technology. Afrotectopia has taken the form of festivals, think tanks, an international fellowship, a multi-university incubator, and a speculative design publishing platform.
Previously, she worked as a creative technologist at Google’s Creative Lab, contributing to projects spanning machine learning on fingertip-scale hardware, creative direction for the Google for Africa campaign, and generative AI research, strategy, and development.