Rhizome

In our latest Artist Profile, artist Vijay Masharani (VM) discusses working in “little brother” mediums, his recent essays critiquing psychoanalysis, the relationship between his pencil drawings and video work, and more with Charlotte Strange (charlotte strange) for the blog.

1- Vijay Masharani, “Green Drawing”, 2025. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 9” x 6 1/4”.
2- Vijay Masharani, “Facade Rotary Sequence”, 2025. Single-channel video, runtime 8:55.
3- Vijay Masharani, “Urchin Foragers (Luka Doncic)”, 2024. Single-channel video, runtime 16:11.
4- Vijay Masharani, “Red Drawing”, 2025. Graphite and colored pencil on paper, 14” x 10”.
5- Vijay Masharani, “O—————K”, 2026 (Included in Greater New York, MoMA PS1, NYC, 2026) single channel video, r/t 18:48
6- Vijay’s Desktop

A website that pays microworkers to rest 😴. An AI tool that asks you questions instead of answering yours 🗣️. A satirical video that juxtaposes the rise of NFT market with the Beanie Babies craze of the 1990s 🧸.

➡️ Explore works by the NEW INC Year 12 Art & Code cohort in the new online exhibition site, “Edge Cases”! Each year, Rhizome partners with NEW INC on its Art & Code track, which explores internet-based artistic practices. Set against the backdrop of the rapid rise of vibe coding, this year’s projects probe the nuances of coding in 2026. Projects treat code as law; as social ruleset; as creative medium—explore works at the link in bio!

⛳️ “Edge Cases” features works by Art & Code Members: Morry Kolman (), Marissa Sean Cruz (marissa sean cruz 😵‍💫🧊🦴🤳), Anna Zhang (Anna Zhang), Aurora Mititelu (Aurora Mititelu), Nicci Yin (Nicci Yin), Viola He (viola), Shakti Mb (shakti ☻), Tara Kelton (Tara Kelton), Karlie Zhao (Karlie Zhao), and X.A. Li (x. a. li)

🏆 Special thanks to NEW INC, Viola He, X.A. Li and Anna Zhang for their work on website development.

Tickets are on sale for Rhizome’s annual benefit, September 23, 2026 in New York City. Marking our 30th anniversary as a born-digital arts institution, this year we honor artist and indigenous futurist Skawennati (Skawennati), and Erick Calderon (Erick Calderon (Snowfro)), generative arts innovator and founder of the Art Blocks platform. 

⛳️September 23, 2026, 6pm 
⛳️Capitale (Capitale NYC), 130 Bowery, New York, NY 10002
⛳️Tickets are available through ITM at the link in bio. 

Rhizome’s annual benefit brings together artists and our closest supporters to celebrate the groundbreaking work we’ve done over the years, and directly supports our Microgrants commissions program, an initiative started in 2014 that awards small grants to new projects on the web. 

🔜More details, including the evening’s special performances and activations, will be announced August 10. 

We hope you’ll join in on the festivities to celebrate 30 years of Rhizome with us! 🎈

Starting today, ‘Escaping the Calculating Machine’ is live ~ a collection of artists’ works in support of Rhizome’s 25 years of commissioning art online. The fundraiser, released in collaboration with superrare, runs a 48-hour auction alongside the release of a series of limited-edition artist prints. 25% of all proceeds go toward Rhizome’s microgrants program.
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We’ve asked eleven artists to reflect on their tools, the limitations that shaped their work, and the subcultures those tools built. They’ve answered with stories of surf clubs and image boards, works ranging from 3D character design to worlds assembled via PETSCII. These artists hang out in different corners of the web, yet they’re linked by a shared love of finding authenticity inside the machine.

Please visit our link in bio for more information on the collection and how to purchase works!

Featuring:
Nicolas Sassoon
bleu281_
Parker Ito
Botto
Jonathan Gillie
Parker Davis
Raquel Meyers
rafaelgamarante
vikgradient
amonsilex
Julian Gallese

Thanks to everyone who stopped by Solar Web Art ☼day last weekend at ! ⌨️✍️🖌️🎨

This event presented ASCII artworks made by students at public schools across NYC as part of our “solar web workshops” educational program, funded by grants from Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and The New York City Cultural Development Fund.

☀️At the event, guests of all ages were also invited to create their own ASCII art, either from their drawings or using digital tools. All resulting artworks were then acquired by the “Museum of ASCII Art”, a website hosted on Rhizome’s solar server.

🫶⌨️Special thanks to the artists Adel Faure (), Abbey Foreman (), and Mindy Seu () for giving us permission to present their ASCII artworks during the event!

If you’re interested in viewing ASCII art made by K-12 students, visit the link in bio! We’ve also uploaded our lesson plans and resources to this site for those interested in making their own ASCII artworks. 🔗🔗

Thank you to all of the participating schools; Solar Protocol: Tega Brain, Alex Nathanson & Benedetta Piantella; our colleagues at the New Museum, our teaching artists Enne Goldstein () & Yasmeen Abdallah (); David Lee for the technical support, and ONX for lending us equipment for the event.

Returning to the same room at the where the program began in 2010, this year’s 7x7 took place in a markedly different context: a world deeply shaped by the scale and ubiquity of the tech industry, alongside the reopening and expansion of the New Museum and its landmark exhibition, New Humans: Memories of the Future.

Across seven collaborations, participants overcame the challenge of creating something new, utilizing abstract systems and addressing how agency can be reclaimed within the complex structures that make up the modern technological world. Documentation from the event is now up on rhizome.org!

⭐️Neema Githere (.back.theinternet) x Mercy Mutemi () proposed the kinternet: a technology of repair, rooted in grief, rage, slowing down, and connecting with one another in the present.

🫯Disintegrator (.integrator) × 邊界 BiānJiè (.systems) reframed the interface as boundary conditions that draw apart and hold together, making new relations legible. 

🧬Agnieszka Kurant (.kurant) x Emily Ertle, Jenn Leung () and Michael Levin explored synthetic organisms and “home worlds,” asking how mortality, environment, and constraint might generate intelligence. 

🎧Debit () x Saarim Zaman () introduced Toolpa, an open-source framework for building and sharing AI-powered musical instruments intended to be as accessible and extensible as React. 

📇Karyn Nakamura () x Lucas Gelfond () gave a satirical presentation on AI marketing and model interpretability, questioning our ability to truly understand the inner workings of AI models. 

👾Andrew Thomas Huang () x Stephanie Zhang () imagined a speculative world centered around the Shen, a creature from Chinese mythology, but set 500 million years in the future through a distributed network of living intelligence. 

📚Caleb Rimtobaye (AfrotroniX) (.beat) x Josiah Hester suggested machine unlearning through small language models designed to preserve and rehearse languages outside colonial infrastructures.

How does ASCII art support a more sustainable approach to making art on the web? ☼모 ✐ᝰ .ᐣ

Join us on Sunday, June 28 at the for Solar Web art ☼day, a day-long event exploring the versatility of ASCII art as both an expressive and environmentally-friendly art form. This event is all ages and free with museum admission `⎚⩊⎚´ -✧ .ᐟ.ᐟ

Guests of all ages will have the opportunity to create their own ASCII artworks and contribute them to a solar-powered website. Original ASCII artworks made by NYC public school students in Rhizome’s solar web workshops will also be on view!

☼ This event accompanies Rhizome’s ongoing educational program in NYC public schools, which uses the concept of the solar web to teach students about digital art and its impacts on the environment. 

Learn more and get tickets at the link in bio! ⫘

Artist Morry Kolman () discusses traffic-camera selfies 🚦, making art out of a cease and desist letter he received from the NYC department of transportation ✉️, how data reflects the human need for attention 👩‍💻, and more with Isabella Haid () in our latest Artist Profile. Read the full interview at the link in bio! ✍️🧑‍⚖️

Presenting… Post-Containment! ✨

Come celebrate an incredible 7x7 day for rhizome with a beautiful night of sound and visuals ~ hosted by at

Co-hosted by , , , .nyc
w/additional curation from .systems + .back.theinternet

Artist Maura Brewer () discusses vacationing at tropical tax havens in her 2024 video essay “Offshore,” art-backed loans, how being a Private Investigator informs her artistic practice, and more with Katie Lane() for our latest Artist Profile. Link in bio to read the full interview!

1- Still, Maura Brewer, “Offshore” (2024). Single-Channel Video, 33:11. Courtesy Maura Brewer.

2 & 3- Still, Maura Brewer, “Jessica Manafort” (2020). Single-Channel Video, 18:01. Courtesy Maura Brewer.

4- Still, Maura Brewer, “Private Client Services” (2021). Single-Channel Video, 19:18. Courtesy Maura Brewer.