Ferdi Alici is a global leader in the emerging field of creating art with data. He is both Founder and Director at Ouchhh, a creative new media studio with expertise in AI, data paintings, and data sculpture. With an office in Istanbul, and partnerships in Los Angeles, Vienna, Barcelona, Paris, and Berlin, Ouchhh is focused on interactive new media platforms, kinetic sculptures, immersive experiences, and video mapping projections. Ouchhh has worked with Google, Cern, Nike, and Wired; the studio recently completed Light, the world’s first artwork based upon the idea of utilization of machine learning in the context of space discovery.
The leading ambassador for the integration of architecture, design, and art, Cindy Allen is a powerhouse for the forces of good in the design industry. As Editor in Chief of Interior Design magazine, she has elevated the publication’s importance and exposure— while proving the vehicle of growth and success for the industry. She has published nine books on design and made over 70 short documentaries featuring the giants of design. Cindy participates in panels, juries, roundtables, speaking engagements, and industry events worldwide, generously sharing her knowledge on an international stage.
FERDI ALICI
CINDY ALLEN
REFIK ANADOL
CAROLINA ARAGÓN
VERONIQUE BAAR
CLODAGH
OLIVIA DAVIS
The leading pioneer of the new field of AI and art, Refik Anadol was born in Istanbul, and now lives and works in Los Angeles, where he operates Refik Anadol Studio. He is celebrated for creating technology-driven art at the intersection of media arts, architecture, and machine intelligence. His largest project to date was the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, where he turned the exterior of the building into an immersive “dream;” the massive installation succeeded in embedding media arts into architecture, and created a new dynamic perception of architectural space.
Massachusetts-based artist Carolina Aragón creates experiences embedded with environmental messages. Her lightweight, ephemeral installations come to life in response to environmental stimuli, such as wind and light. Inspired by natural and environmental phenomena such as clouds, marshes, and flocks of birds, her work becomes dynamic compositions overlaid unto urban environments. The result is unexpected moments of wonder. Holding a Master of Landscape Architecture from Harvard, she is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A European leader in the art consulting space, Veronique Baar founded the Netherlands-based QKunst in 2004, with the desire to help clients make the connection between art and the public, resulting in “a dialogue with the passers-by.” The QKunst team of professionals are active in collection management and commissioned art for provinces, cities, companies, and consortia. Baar provided artistic guidance for the public art program of the Amsterdam metro system, an enormous project that impacts the daily lives of millions of commuters.
The pre-eminent pioneer in the field of design based on wellness, New York-based Clodagh runs a multi-disciplinary design practice that spans over 24 countries and includes hotels, luxury spas, healthcare facilities, and residential properties. Clodagh creates life-enhancing environments and is committed to sustainability and authenticity in materials. Her spaces underscore the belief that good design, integrated with art, supports well-being and can transform people’s lives. An artist herself, Clodagh’s work addresses the entire human body and psyche by applying a broad spectrum of modalities that promote wellness.
Olivia Davis is a trailblazer in the art of healing environments. As Curator of the Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein Medical Center, she provides patients, visitors and employees with a life-affirming, healing and supportive environment. She is also the Co-Founder and Project Manager of The CHILZone: The Children’s Hospital Innovation Lab at Montefiore, a multi-disciplinary think tank implementing digital technology (augmented/virtual/mixed reality and digital programming) to help pediatric patients reduce pain, anxiety and opioid use through stimulus-rich, curated artistic environments.
KONSTANTIN
DIMOPOULOS
DIMOPOULOS
Motivated by the belief that art can initiate and support social change, Konstantin Dimopoulos approaches his artworks as the vehicles for expressing social and humanistic philosophies. Employing a diversity of materials, he grapples with equally diverse subject matter: immigration, homelessness, mental health, domestic violence, and political power to name a few. Consistent in nearly all of his work is the the use of highly saturated, monochromatic colors that create bold visual statements. An Egyptian-born artist of Greek descent, he lives in the U.S. and has erected public art installations all over the world.
PHILIPPE DEMERS
Representing a new breed of producers and curators, Philippe Demers, Founding Partner and CEO of MASSIVart, runs an international art consultancy agency in Montreal, Toronto, Mexico City, Shanghai, Paris, Dubai and Los Angeles. Working at the intersection of art and commerce, he collaborates with emerging and established artists, architects, developers, designers and other creatives on architectural design, original works of art, and art-driven cultural programs. His passionate support of innovative art programs have brought MASSIVart a who’s who of high-profile clients.
GILL GATFIELD
New Zealand sculptor Gill Gatfield is an activist and an alchemist, creating beautiful minimalist artworks packed with complexity. Inventive in form and meaning, her work draws audiences to engage through sensory experience and inspired philosophical narratives. From a platform of inclusion, Gill’s public artworks challenge the status quo, raising eyebrows, questions, and the bar for minimalist art in contemporary practice. Her Glass Ceiling installation in 2019 delivered a potent political metaphor to the world, and in creating it, she has raised the bar for women’s rights and activism through her artwork.
MARC FORNES
Marc Fornes creates astonishing projects that are situated between the fields of art and architecture. He leads MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY, a Brooklyn-based studio which has evolved a prototypical strategy to unify surface, structure, and spatial experience into a single tectonic system—namely through the invention of Structural Stripes. Over the last ten years, the studio has designed and built a number of thin-shell pavilions and installations that push the limits of form, structure, and space, and in doing so, has developed a new breed of spatial artwork in the field of public art.
While an accomplished mosaic artist working in postage stamps and CoChroma lenticular lenses, Peter Hite has also left an indelible mark on our industry by collecting and providing information on the field of art consulting. Inspired to learn and share, he interviewed a number of art consultants and summarized their business philosophies and approaches to commissions. The articles (published on CODAworx), provide guidance on how to create meaningful relationships with this important audience. Peter’s generous work offers actionable tips for artists as they navigate the art consulting world and the private commission process.
Gillie and Marc Schattner create art that pays homage to the importance of togetherness, as well as the magnificence of the natural world and the necessity of preserving it. Their work spreads messages of love, equality, and conservation around the world, and can be found in over 250 cities. The artists are best known for their characters Rabbitwoman and Dogman, who tell the autobiographical tale of two opposites coming together to become best friends and soul mates. The artists first met on a film shoot in Hong Kong and 7 days later ran away to Nepal to get married on the foothills of Mount Everest.
STACY LEVY
Stacy Levy’s is an environmental artist extraordinaire; her projects have a calm energy that show the presence of urban nature, clarifying the patterns of natural processes existing on the site. Based in Pennsylvania, Stacy collaborates directly with the natural forces such as tidal rivers, urban streams, and rainwater. Her work registers the changes in nature over the course of a day, a season or several years. She collaborates with architects, landscape architects, and engineers to create natural systems. The outcome: her projects allow people to witness first-hand the fluctuations of the natural world, bringing a sense of connectedness.
VINCE KADLUBEK
Vince Kadlubek is Co-Founder and CEO of Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe-based art collective that is now an award-winning arts production company. After leading Meow Wolf to win the inaugural startup competition from Creative Startups, Vince created the business plan for Meow Wolf’s House of Eternal Return and led the team towards completion. He is interested in co-creating alternative realities and bringing unique, indescribable, transformative immersive art experiences to the world. Recently, he announced Meow Wolf future spaces in Las Vegas, Denver, Washington DC, and Phoenix.
In today’s world where airports have become the new art museums, Lauren Lockhart leads the way. As Arts Program Manager for the San Diego International Airport, she directs the airport’s efforts to seamlessly integrate ambitious public artworks into the airport environment. She recently contributed to a comprehensive Arts Master Plan for the airport that guides the program through its largest capital project to date. She has created outreach efforts with ongoing educational programming for high school and college-age students, and by developing a public art tour program led by docents.
Award-winning architect/designer Kris Lin creates architecture and design that is totally integrated with art. Educated in France with a master’s degree in architectural management, he returned to Shanghai to develop a new way of thinking about interior space design, publishing books on his personal vision along the way. For over 20 years, he has brought innovation and change to architectural design, interior design, and landscape architecture in China, and in doing so, has become a recognized leader worldwide in his field. His design tenet: Look at the world with open and generous eyes.
JAMIE PERROW
New York-based Jamie Perrow personifies the true meaning of creative collaborator. In his role as Senior Principal of Art + Design at UAP, the international company that facilitates the production of art for the public realm, Jamie has collaborated on projects featuring artists, architects, and designers from across the globe. He has overseen many of UAP’s most significant projects, giving voice to a who’s who of creative thinkers including Sui Jian Guo, Ned Kahn, Nike Savvas, Arne Quinze, Florentijn Hofman, Lindy Lee, Erwin Redl, and Idris Khan.
SUSAN NARDULI
Working on the cutting edge of art based in new media, Los Angeles-based Susan Narduli is both artist and architect. Her time-based works bring together the virtual and physical in one environment – positioning narrative, real-time data, and interactive experience within the context of public space. She has completed commissions in public art, architecture, virtual environments, interactive experiences, museum installations, light and sound environments, and landscapes. Her recent explorations consider the relationship of art to our mental, emotional, and physical states, and speak to the healing power of art.
ANDY SCOTT
Andy Scott is a figurative sculptor working on the grandest of scales. His artworks combine traditional draftsmanship with contemporary fabrication techniques and range from ten to 100 feet in height. Dynamic forms are shaped by hand from steel and clay. Andy’s artworks inhabit the public realm and private estates, dramatizing their environments and creating narratives, a sense of place and civic pride. His studio output now extends to over 80 projects internationally. In 2016, Andy moved from Scotland to Philadelphia with his manager wife, Hanneke Scott-van Wel (an architect).
GUTO REQUENA
ZOLTY
DAVID WAGNER
LAUREN LOCKHART
KRIS LIN
PETER HITE
GILLIE + MARC
São Paulo’s Guto Requena speaks openly and publicly about the need to harness art and technology for the purpose of generating love of and connection to place. As a Brazilian architect and designer, he creates projects around the world that reflect on memory, culture, and poetic narratives in different design scales: objects, spaces, and cities. Guto’s LOVE PROJECT features design, science, and technology to capture the emotions of personal love stories, transformed into everyday objects. He founded Estudio Guto Requena in 2008 and has ever since acted as design consultant, writer, public speaker, and professor.
MIREK STRUZIK
Mirek Struzik turns ordinary streets into enchanting walk-throughs that fire the imagination, using public lighting in the form of constructed flowers and plants. He is a Polish artist who uses the structures of nature to make sculptures for public spaces in urban settings. He is fascinated by floral patterns, transitioning these biological micro-structures into macro-scale creations. His magical work can be found in the U.S., South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and across Europe.
CANDAŞ ŞIŞMAN AND DENIZ KADER
Pioneers in the use of technology in art to connect people to their spaces, Candaş Şişman and Deniz Kader founded NOHlab in 2011 to explore space and possibilities, and the connection between humans and technology. Their studio, NOHlab, is based in Istanbul, and their efforts bridge digital and physical reality. A recent public art project, Journey, did this with an immersive visualization of light photons passing through the eye, creating an audiovisual storytelling experience about the very act of seeing.
In the new world of software-and-hardware-
driven artworks, Zolty develops new forms of art along with new software- space business models to support that art. As the Co-Founder and Head of Design at New York-based BREAKFAST, a new media art collective focused on creating revolutionary artworks, Zolty connects viewers to far-away places through interactive experiences and powerful stories. BREAKFAST's most recognized works include various Brixels installations, Thread Screen, and Flip-Discs installations found in stadiums, lobbies, and museums across the US.
driven artworks, Zolty develops new forms of art along with new software- space business models to support that art. As the Co-Founder and Head of Design at New York-based BREAKFAST, a new media art collective focused on creating revolutionary artworks, Zolty connects viewers to far-away places through interactive experiences and powerful stories. BREAKFAST's most recognized works include various Brixels installations, Thread Screen, and Flip-Discs installations found in stadiums, lobbies, and museums across the US.
North Carolina architect David Wagner beautifully and effortlessly bridges the gap between art and architecture. His firm, Wagner Murray Architects, often serves as both architect and artist. Recently, David has designed an immersive, animated light art installation for three rail bridges in Charlotte, North Carolina’s Center City. Two projects, The Green, an urban park, and the UNC-Greensboro Pedestrian Underpass, both received international design awards for public spaces and art installations.
25 Creative Revolutionaries lead the way for positive change.
From the CODAworx vantage point,
2019 was an extraordinary year for our amazing tribe of creative professionals. As we surveyed the diverse landscape of commissions completed, it became evident that the art and design community is at the forefront of positive change in this world. Increasingly, we see artists and their collaborators tackling difficult issues of a social, political, or environmental nature. Their work is fueled by the desire to solve real-world problems, or to raise provocative questions, or to offer a refuge from those real-world problems through installations that promote wellness and healing.
We call these activist individuals Creative Revolutionaries. They are taking a stand through their artwork and the spaces they transform. They are beseeching
us to pay attention.
We have gathered together a list of 25 leaders of this artistic revolution to shine a spotlight on their efforts – which reflect so well on this entire industry of commissioned art professionals. The list of Creative Revolutionaries includes the artist magicians whose diverse works serve as mirrors of our world. It also includes the pioneers who are leading the way in using new technological tools that allow for the creation of artwork that facilitates empathy and engagement. And finally, we have recognized several industry mavens who connect us with imagery and information that inspire us to do better.
It is our distinct honor to bring together the leading rabble-rousers – those who provide us with the vision, connections, strategy, and effective practices to bring about change. They give us all a renewed sense of purpose.
Toni Sikes
CEO — CODAworx
2019 was an extraordinary year for our amazing tribe of creative professionals. As we surveyed the diverse landscape of commissions completed, it became evident that the art and design community is at the forefront of positive change in this world. Increasingly, we see artists and their collaborators tackling difficult issues of a social, political, or environmental nature. Their work is fueled by the desire to solve real-world problems, or to raise provocative questions, or to offer a refuge from those real-world problems through installations that promote wellness and healing.
We call these activist individuals Creative Revolutionaries. They are taking a stand through their artwork and the spaces they transform. They are beseeching
us to pay attention.
We have gathered together a list of 25 leaders of this artistic revolution to shine a spotlight on their efforts – which reflect so well on this entire industry of commissioned art professionals. The list of Creative Revolutionaries includes the artist magicians whose diverse works serve as mirrors of our world. It also includes the pioneers who are leading the way in using new technological tools that allow for the creation of artwork that facilitates empathy and engagement. And finally, we have recognized several industry mavens who connect us with imagery and information that inspire us to do better.
It is our distinct honor to bring together the leading rabble-rousers – those who provide us with the vision, connections, strategy, and effective practices to bring about change. They give us all a renewed sense of purpose.
Toni Sikes
CEO — CODAworx
cre·a·tive
/krēˈādiv/
/krēˈādiv/
— relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.
— (of a person) having good imagination or original ideas.
— (of a person) having good imagination or original ideas.
rev·o·lu·tion·ar·y
/ˌrevəˈlo͞oSHəˌnerē/
/ˌrevəˈlo͞oSHəˌnerē/
— involving or causing a complete or dramatic change.
