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Currently, I'm full-time researching, designing, prototyping, and writing about how we can advance an alternative future of computing rooted in communal agency. As a supporter, you'll get early access to new works, participation in internet art, special discounts on releases, access to private Discord, and the warm-fuzzy feeling of supporting an independent creator

The world is becoming increasingly chaotic. The systems as we know them are failing or being torn apart. On the other hand, mechanisms that have moved the world for ages in the shadows have been revealed—the power of money to shape societies and the battle for meaning and survival in an age where most people can barely afford to live. I have always sought to connect my work to this struggle for liberty and agency, for our desire to reinvent our systems of living into ones that serve us better. The fundamental philosophy I carry into my work is that combining play and whimsy with provocative experiences and empowering tools is one of the most effective ways to instigate cultural change. I am interested in advocating for grassroots and coalition-building solidarity, for collective agency over corporate agency, for the radical liberty of joy, whimsy, and play and how they give us the space to imagine systems that serve us.

While my works often rely on technology, they are not limited to digital reaches. I am interested in any medium that can reach people and will always go towards ones that can reach people where they already are. The Internet, for all of the existing gripes we have with it about how it tears us apart, is still the place where most of us encounter others. Disregarding the nature of these encounters (parasocial or otherwise), they, to me, are real, living opportunities for creating change, building solidarity, and feeling a love for other people different than ourselves. I believe these everyday moments are crucial to creating collective change in the world, which is why my work will always prioritize meeting people where they already are and distributed in forms that can be accessed in everyday lives, rather than limited to presenting in institutional art contexts or other forms of exclusive access.

Mixing three core ingredients: technology, art, and community, I produce three distinct outputs that can span the range between physical and digital:

1. Infrastructure: systems that provide material utility or agency in creating something or cultivating some practice.
2. Environments: spaces that facilitate collective connection and agency
3. Toys: products that package these ideas and provocations into playful objects and sites that can live alongside someone in their homes

Intersections between categories are normal and encouraged (e.g. environment + toy = game, toy + infrastructure = tool).

Some work that has emerged from this practice is

• playhtml
• Gather
• Computing Shrines

Background

Spencer Chang (b. Houston, 1997) is an artist and engineer interested in the play, care, and creation that emerge from our relationships with and through technology. Their practice—spanning internet environments, interactive sculpture, and creative infrastructure—reconstructs technology as a medium for communal flourishing. These works act as "interventions" that leverage whimsical intimacy to interrogate our systems, invite active imagination to reinvent them, and finally, equip us with the means to do so. Their work has been featured in the de Young Museum, Gray Area, CultureHub, and Frieze, among others. A NEW INC Y11 member, they have hosted workshops and activations for institutions including Stanford University, the University of Pennsylvania, and SFPC.

Before, I spent several years building tools for tinkers at Coda (I built out our custom templates platform and helped scale the Packs platform so that anyone can extend Coda's capabilities, maintaining an open-source SDK). I also conjure soulful speculations of new futures at verses, a collective of writers, researchers, and technologists co-imagining, practicing, and building a healthier cyberspace. I co-stewarded the creation of pluriverse.world and poems.verses.xyz.

Thank you for visiting my profile and considering supporting my work!