Diffuse Control by Beeple

Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) is a groundbreaking digital artist and graphic designer whose work bridges the realms of art, technology, and culture. He rose to global prominence with his “Everydays” project, a daily digital art practice he began in 2007, producing a new piece every single day without fail. Known for his vibrant, surreal, and often satirical works, Beeple explores themes ranging from politics to pop culture, rendered with cutting-edge 3-D and digital techniques. In 2021, Beeple made history when his NFT artwork Everydays: The First 5000 Days sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s, a landmark moment that propelled digital art and NFTs into mainstream recognition. Renowned for his playful and provocative visual storytelling, Beeple consistently pushes the boundaries of digital art and critiques society’s evolving relationship with technology, culture, and media.

Dejá Aaliyah Belardo (she/they) is a curator and painter based in New York City, originally from St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Currently, Belardo holds the position of associate curator, civic programs and visual arts at The Shed. Belardo’s goal as a curator is to support boundary-pushing artists as they establish themselves in the art historical canon, especially those who have been historically marginalized.

Belardo’s professional experience has included major arts institutions in New York City like the Whitney Museum of American Art and Pace Gallery. They also completed the Museum Professionals Seminar with The Studio Museum in Harlem. They have participated in jury panels for residencies, spoken in public program panels, and worked on independent projects with various emerging artists, galleries, and nonprofits in the Caribbean, New York, and across the US, while maintaining a studio practice of their own.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian American curator, art historian, and writer known for her interdisciplinary approach to contemporary art. She gained international acclaim as the artistic director of DOCUMENTA (13) in 2012 and has led major institutions like Castello di Rivoli and the Biennale of Sydney. Her work often bridges art, science, and politics, earning her recognition as one of the most influential figures in the art world.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and art historian. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review. He lives and works in London.

Alex Poots is a widely acclaimed arts and cultural leader who has built major new organizations from the ground up, and who has inspired established organizations to reshape their familiar approaches into more innovative, popular and culturally democratic programs.

Poots was appointed in 2015 as the founding artistic director and CEO of The Shed in NYC, following a decade creating, launching and leading Manchester International Festival (MIF) in the UK. At these organizations, as well at Park Avenue Armory in NYC, the Barbican Centre and Tate Galleries in London, Poots has conceived and developed new ways for arts organizations to realize their missions and visions—commissioning and presenting established and early-career artists and creatives across disciplines and regions, often in new collaborations, and welcoming a range of audiences of all backgrounds to discover their work. In 2023 Poots continued his role as The Shed’s founding artistic director and set up a new kind of production house called North Star Studio.

Poots has forged enduring and fruitful relationships with the artists and creatives with whom he works—from composers to pop artists, theater directors to filmmakers, writers to visual artists, technologists to academics. In the process, he has supported them to evolve artistic formats and realize ambitious projects, drawing large audiences in the process. By questioning established artistic structures and societal constructs, Poots works to bring together creative practices and audiences in new combinations—facilitating, originating, and promoting artistic invention, interdisciplinary practice, and transformative programs through the organizations he leads.