Michigan Central x Newlab Art + Technology Residency
The Michigan Central x Newlab Art + Technology Residency program was founded in 2024 administered by Cézanne Charles and John Marshall, rootoftwo. Foregrounding emerging and mid-career artists based primarily in metro Detroit, the Artist-in-Residence program offers studio space, hands-on training, professional development and a $30,000 unrestricted stipend for six artists and creative practitioners to pursue projects at the intersection of art, design, science, and technology.
Emphasizing process over product, the selected artists will be given full access to the broad range of fabrication methods available in the state-of-the-art facilities of Michigan Central and Newlab, along with the training necessary to use these machines autonomously in their self-directed pursuits. Through its catalytic program design, the unfettered access granted to artist-residents intends to maximize the potential for personal and professional growth while encouraging these creative thinkers to identify new applications and implications for the technologies at play.
Applications to the artist residency are currently made through a process of nomination, with plans to include open-call applicants as well as artist participants from around the world in forthcoming cohorts. The selecting jury for the 2024 inaugural cohort included Abir Ali, Principal at Abir Ali &; Carla Diana, Head of 4D Design Cranbrook Academy of Art; Jova Lynne, Artistic Director MOCAD; Roddy Shock, Executive Director Eyebeam; David Belt, Co-founder Newlab; Cézanne Charles, Partner rootoftwo; Kelly Kivland, Director and Lead Curator Michigan Central Art Program; John Marshall, Partner rootoftwo; Lauren Ruffin, Director and Lead Strategist Michigan Central Art Program; and Nate Wallace, Head of Civic Partnerships Michigan Central.
The program is supported in part with funding from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Meet the Artists-in-Residence
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Simon Anton
Sculptures of Renewed Illumination
Simon will explore two ubiquitous modern waste products: plastic waste and e-mobility batteries to create solar-powered public light sculptures.
Simon Anton (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist, designer, and educator that collaborates across the fields of architecture, interior design, furniture, art, and jewelry. He is the co-founder of Thing Thing, a design collective that experiments in the transformation of post-consumer, hand-recycled polyethylene plastic sourced from surrounding communities and from industrial manufacturing. He facilitates “Transforming Trash,” where he works with youth in Detroit to transform community plastic waste into art. He is also the co-founder of Got Grief House where he promotes art as a means of grief counseling. His work has been presented at the Hong Kong Shenzhen Biennale, Expo Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and the Venice Architecture Biennale. Anton received a Master of Fine Arts in 3D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
This Will
Kill________That -
Ash Arder
Sound Harvesting Off Grid Object (SHOGO)
Ash, using solar energy to record, remix, and broadcast sound, will develop SHOGO, an interactive public art object that also doubles as an electrical hub when access to the grid is unavailable.
Ash Arder (she/they) is a transdisciplinary artist whose research-based approach works to expose, deconstruct or reconfigure physical and conceptual systems – especially those related to ecology and/or industry. Ash manipulates physical and virtual environments to explore materials, mark making, mechanical portraiture and sound design as tools for complicating dynamics of power between humans, machines and the lands they occupy. Recent achievements include a solo exhibition at the Cranbrook Museum of Art and a 2023 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship.
Josephine Off Grid DJ Set
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Wes Taylor
Detroit Sound Space Circles
Wes will explore the ways that the practice of electronic beat making can impact the built environment. Through the Detroit Sound Space Circles project, Wes will work to generate spaces for exchange and production that are intersectional, intergenerational and interdisciplinary.
Wes Taylor (he/him) is a print maker, designer, musician, animator, educator, mentor, and curator. Wes roots his practice in performance and social justice. His work combines, oscillates between, and blurs these different disciplines. Wes’s work is multi-disciplinary as well as anti-disciplinary. His individual practice is inextricably linked to a constellation of collectives and networks he has formed over 20 years. Those collectives include: Complex Movements, Talking Dolls Detroit, Design Justice Network, Athletic Mic League, and All Faux Everythings. His work is inspired by elder knowledge, complex science, 90s underground hip hop, punk aesthetics, and science fiction. Wes is an associate professor at Wayne State University and splits his time between Detroit and Stockholm Sweden where he is a fellow in the OPI (Of Public Interest) Lab at the Kungl Konsthögskolan.
Beware of the Dandelions Complex Movements
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Michael Candy
Anomaly Project
Michael will creatively experiment with LED beams, drones, and custom submersible vehicles, among other technologies to create public interventions. The Anomaly project aims to catalyze awe and wonder.
Michael Candy (he/him) is an artist whose work reflects the socio-political currents of contemporary technologies. Acting as a witness to the nature of cybernetics and digital culture, Candy positions the viewer in a physical and moral confrontation with issues challenging post-industrial society. His installations, sculpture, and video works often emerge as social experiments or ecological interventions in public space. This didactic practice seeks to mediate the liminal realm that the digital age imposes on the physical world. Michael recently completed a Masters in 4D design at Cranbrook College of Arts in Detroit, USA in 2023. This furthered his research in our dependency on digital technologies and the shrinking void between the digital and natural world. This ethos is apparent with his recent proposals and installations that are ever more critical of technology. Candy has been involved in many international exhibitions and residencies, notably: Water, (GOMA, Brisbane), Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, (AGSA, Adelaide), Ars Electronica Festival, (Linz, Austria), The Kathmandu Triennale (Kathmandu, Nepal). He has also hosted workshops locally and internationally through The Forum of Sensory Motion residency (Athens, Greece), The Instrument Builders Project + Hackteria Lab (Yogyakarta, Indonesia), Hawapi (Huepetuhe, Peru), and PIF Camp (Soča Slovenia). Candy is also the winner of the WRO Award as part of the 16th Media Art biennale in Poland and Prix Cube in Paris. He has also been a finalist in the Jeremy Hynes Award (Brisbane, Australia), The Bio Art and Design Award (The Hague, Netherlands) and the Museum Acquisition Award (Detroit, USA).
CRYPTID photo credit Jürgen Grünwald
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Kristina Sheufelt
Land Unknown
Kristina will continue to explore regional ecology, data visualization and intuitive approaches to the creation of Land Unknown–an interdisciplinary multimedia work.
Kristina Sheufelt (they/she) is a visual artist and environmentalist based in Detroit, Michigan. She received her BFA from the College for Creative Studies in 2013 and her MFA from the University of Michigan in 2022. In 2017 she attended a National Parks Arts Foundation residency in Texas, and in 2020 was invited to the La Wayaka Current residency in Chile. In 2023 Sheufelt was an AIR at the Prairie Ronde residency in Vicksburg, MI, and the Cedar Point Biological Research Station in Nebraska. Her work and research has been presented at institutions throughout the United States and abroad, and has been recognized locally and internationally. Sheufelt’s interdisciplinary practice utilizes object and image-making, ephemeral installation, and experiments in human-nature collaboration to investigate the underlying psychology of human ecological behaviors. Informing this investigation is a long-standing commitment to engaging in formal research within the biological and environmental sciences. Sheufelt’s work often deals with themes of permanence and impermanence, exploring parallels in love and loss across human and ecological relationships. She utilizes her body and experiences as a visual and symbolic reference point for human/nature relationships at large, reflecting on the need for ecological intimacy in the face of today’s myriad environmental crises.
A Wind from Noplace
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Leith Campbell
Canticle (A Second Canticle for Turing)
Leith will employ deep learning, generative algorithms, and artificial intelligence to create Canticle (A Second Canticle for Turing)— a musical and architectural installation. The project explores the integration of human interaction and feedback into the composition process, blurring the lines between human and machine creativity.
Leith Campbell (she/her) works at the intersection of technology and creativity, attempting to find new, more organic methods of expressing meaning and emotion using technological means as well as using machines to interrogate humanity’s relationship to technology. From tech-mediated avant-garde composition to electro-mechanical sculpture, there are few mediums under the rubric of technology she has not intersected with in her practice. Originally an instrumentalist with an improvisational focus, she has reinvented and renewed her practice many times. Since 2017, Campbell has been exploring notions of space, perception, phenomenology, and identity, as well as developing new pedagogies synergizing technology and art. She received her Master’s in Media Arts from the University of Michigan in 2017 and her bachelors from Wayne State in 2011. In addition to teaching at Wayne State, she also presides over the metal fabrication department of the College for Creative Studies. She has installed and performed works locally, nationally, and internationally, including Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit’s Orchestra Hall, the Power Center in Ann Arbor, End Tymes festival in Red Hook Brooklyn, and Electric Eclectics festival in Ontario. She is a recipient of the Culture Source Creators of Culture Grant, a 2014 Knight Foundation Arts Challenge grant, and is a 2022 Kresge Arts in Detroit Fellow.
Slendron at the Pool with Chip Flynn Apetechnology