Chia Amisola (b. 2000, Manila) is an internet & ambient artist and designer devoted to the internet’s loss, love, labor, and liberation. Their (web)site-specific practice (websites, tools, performance) posits creation as synonymous with liberation. Activated as 'internet ambient', dense / durational / networked desktop readings where hypertext is performance, they touch on the defaults, opacities, and infrastructural intimacies of the internet as an ecology, territory, and atmosphere.
They are the organizer of Developh, a critical technology institute based in the Philippines they founded in 2016, and the Philippine Internet Archive. Most recently, they've curated & programmed working on KAKAKOMPYUTER MO YAN!, an exhibition of Filipino networking cultures. They graduated with a BA in Computing & the Arts with distinction from Yale University in 2022, receiving the Sudler Prize for the creative arts. They currently are a NEW INC Art & Code member, were a Fellow of the Processing Foundation, resident at Gray Area (US), Yale Center for Collaborative Arts & Media, and the Internet Archive's DWeb Camp. They have spoken internationally at the Grace Hopper Celebration (US), Causal Islands, UX+ (Philippines), Naive Yearly (Denmark) have been internationally exhibited at /rosa (Germany) and Now Play This (UK), performed at CultureHub (NYC), panke.gallery (Germany), and 98B (Philippines), recently published in Runway Journal (AUS),Runway Journal (AUS), The HTML Review, and Rappler and have been featured in El País, Frieze, and The New Yorker.
With practice dating back to 2006, including writing & software (such as gamemaking tools as games), digital intimacy ( whenwe.love), placemaking & territories (their manifesto, thesoundof.love, on domain naming), religion & ritual (Visita), folk archival (Philippine Internet Archive), teaching & organizing (including pro-bono organizing 100+ events across 7+ years of programming with Developh), artifacts & performances (the performance of the browser, the browser as performance), amongst others.
( Simply, I dream of gathering all the people I love in one place, and build an internet that might be that place. )
Education
2022 BA Computing & the Arts, YaleSelected Exhibitions
... Kakakompyuter Mo Yan (+ curatorial)2024 DEMO Festival, New Museum x NEWINC
2024 Artist Showcase, Gray Area (CA)
2023 Website as Subject (Dual with yehwan song), panke.gallery (Germany)
2023 All machines watched over by loving grace, InterAccess (Canada)
2023 Plural Prototypes, Gray Area (CA)
2023 Now Play This, Somerset House (UK)
2023 Soft Narratives, /rosa (Germany)
2023 Swords & Kisses, Staffordshire St (UK)
2022 Endnotes, Yale School of Art (US)
Professional
NOW Prototyping, Figma2021 Design Systems, Spotify
2020 Design, Kumu
2019 Tech, Rappler
Selected Talks & Performances
2023Screen Walk, Fotomuseum Winterthur (CH) & Photographers' Gallery London (UK)
Internet ambient, 98B (PH)
If you knew me..., panke.gallery (DE)
On domain naming, Naive Yearly (DK)
On mythology & computing, Casual Islands (CA)
On sites & sights, Processing (US)
On cyberfeminism, The Lab (CA, US)
On prototyping, Figma (CA, US)
Concrete Form, CultureHub (NY)
Artists' talk, WordHack (NY, US)
On (web)sites, Software for People at Yale (CT)
EARLIER
On design as fantasy, UX+ (PH)
On worlding, Batangas State University (PH)
Speaker, Hopper Down Under (AU)
Speaker, Grace Hopper Celebration (TX, US)
Selected Press
Forbes 30 under 30The New Yorker
Escape the Algorithm (Interview)
Usurpator (Interview)
Frieze
El País
Selected Residencies & Honors
Forbes 30 under 30Art & Code, New Musem's NEW INC x Rhizome
Media Arts Residency, Kala Art Institute
Microgrant for net.art, Rhizome
Cultural Incubator, Gray Area
Residency, Welcome to my Homepage
Fellow, Internet Archive/DWeb Camp
Sudler Prize for Creative Arts, Yale University
Availability
I'm always interested in speaking, making, writing, exhibiting, and performing.
Creative & artistic collaborations are highly welcome, especially with institutions / individuals from the Philippines.
I'm not available for any paid or full-time opportunities outside of art. (I can't make you a personal website!)