Whatisacurator

✨ OPEN CALL ✨ We’re officially inviting artists, designers, technologists, and creative mischief-makers to submit work for the 2026 festival. If you work with motion graphics, projection, screens, interactivity, video, or ideas that don’t fit neatly into boxes, we want to see what you’re thinking about. Finished pieces, early experiments, strange hybrids, and ambitious concepts are all welcome. This festival is a playground for bold ideas and thoughtful execution — a place to test boundaries, share perspectives, and light up public space in ways that feel meaningful, playful, or quietly profound. Submission details are live now. LINK IN BIO. Let’s make the city glow differently, together. Artist fees: This festival is completely volunteer-run. We aspire to properly compensate all artists and are actively pursuing funding to do so. In our first year, compensation levels are not yet confirmed, and we commit to being transparent with selected artists as the festival takes shape. We’re building this because we care deeply about the community and the work being made within it.

Mentally I’m There @mmsurijeka has partnered with with @cubecommons to host a Virtual iteration of their exhibition on new media art in our Voxels gallery! The exhibition opens Today! Annnnd will host a public program Sunday December 6/7 depending on your #timezone 10pm-11pm PST. See bio for link 🔗. Content will also be featured on CubeCommons.ca Thank you to artists @petramrsa @gabrielhensche @susanna_flo @totalrefusal And Board member @mikestjean for generously supporting CubeCommons gallery on Voxels

New Profile on CubeCommons by Bentall Gallery! Upcoming #exhibition by @idream_library I Dream Library is an interdisciplinary education and arts organization founded in 2019 by Aisha Kiani and their son Rakim. Through digital and research archives, workshops, exhibitions, and community-centered initiatives, I Dream Library invites people of all ages to reflect on the transformative power of libraries anywhere and everywhere, and promotes the role of libraries and archives in social justice movements, public education, and cultural (re)formation. At the heart of I Dream Library is a belief in the library as a metaphor for liberation through infinite possibility: a space where ideas are constantly being rediscovered, reimagined, and reinterpreted. Through exhibits and installations, Aisha and Rakim focus on creating environments where the boundaries between reality, dreams, and learning dissolve.

ISSUES 2024: ‘Equilibrium MycoProcessing (EMP)’ by Ashlee Conery with collaboration from Tuuli Utriainen Part of the School of Commons, @zhdkcampus workshop with @cernideasquare innovation space, 2024/5. ‘The integration of AI tools into our everyday lives has largely followed the logic of commodification—data extracted, siloed, and sold by a handful of powerful entities. Yet, as we stand in what may be the “important-middle” of international regulatory efforts, there is a growing urgency to question the terms under which these systems have been developed, and whose values they encode. Data, like a gift, does not exist in a vacuum; it is relational, generated through our interactions, our movements, our communities. This paper explores the adaptive intelligence of natural distributing networks—particularly mycelium—as an alternative model for data processing and governance, which we are calling Equilibrium MycoProcessing (EMP). By turning to ecological teachers who have sustained growth over centuries, rather than corporate precedents—that in just eight generations have operationalized resource extraction to multiple points of economic and environmental collapse—we can begin to imagine infrastructures rooted in reciprocity, resilience, and collective benefit. This shift is especially urgent now, as the distributed data networks that support our AI tools are shaping not only our individual stake in emerging markets, but how our health information is used, how insurance is calculated, how home ownership is determined, and even whether we are considered employable. In essence, what is taking root beneath the surface of these new gifts is the distribution of our data in ways that increasingly direct the flow of resources within human networks, quietly determining which systems are nourished and which are left to wither.’ @whatisacurator Explore the full contribution ➡️ schoolofcommons.org/making-public/issues/2024/equilibrium-mycoprocessing-emp music by @salutcestcoolcool Хореограф @dukaaliss Школа танцев @gravity_zhuk via iramazanoff Song: Champignons by Salut C’est schoolofcommons #makingpublic #issues2024 #ashleeconery #tuuliutriainen #zhdk #ideasquarecern

We are very excited to share this interview with digital artist, painter, photographer @lydiapourmand !! Part of our ongoing release from #cubecommonsproductions Production, supported by the @canada.council Digital Strategy Fund. Lydia Pourmand [she/they] is a #queer, mixed #Iranian interdisciplinary #designer from London, UK. They are currently residing between #Vancouver (the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples) and London, UK. Lydia seamlessly merges design with technology, drawing from a diverse background that includes #motiondesign, #gaming, #AR, #blockchain, immersive installations, and entertainment. Dedicated to creating with purpose and working with intention, Lydia is committed to using her skills to unite art and technology for the collective benefit of her communities. She is on the Board Of Directors for CARFAC National and actively stands against exploitative practices within the arts and tech, striving to make a positive impact through her work.

Very proud to say that since our official launch last spring we have achieved over 100,000+ unique visitors and average 725+ unique visitors a week. We #host content by arts and culture organizations in #vancouver #newwestminster #saskatoon #ottawa #toronto #zurich #berlin … successfully held our first community vote with #gov4git and are partnering on sustainability projects that cross tech, food and knowledge protection. As we end the first week of #2025, we could not be more excited about what awaits us this year! It’s not an easy time in history and we should neither just accept or deny what is; but what could be lies in our willingness to build together. #buildtogether #cubecommons #cubecommons #artsorganizations #artists #artists #researchers #dataprotection

This Friday is our annual #TownHall anyone with a profile on CubeCommons is welcome, as well as all partners and organizations interested in learning more! Email [email protected] if you have not received the link to join. You can also follow the linktr.ee in our bio to review and comment on current proposals in our GitHub, or access #guides in the CubeCommons.ca library for joining our Gov4git desktop app. #cubecommons #community #meeting #shared #infastructure

Thank you to the #cubecommons 2024 Board of Directors for all the connections you each made, the time you took to discuss, write applications, introductions, answer questions, just being there to listen and share; I cannot thank you enough !!!! Collaboration begins with collaboration, thank you 🙏. @tfhogue @artengine @mikestjean @jonathanbluks @deaf.spectrum #jillbaird #moavancouver #charlenetesssier Join our next town hall on November 29 at 8:30am PST to nominate or vote on 2025 developments and the CubeCommons Board. When you sign up for a profile you will receive an email with a link to the meeting.

We’re excited to be collaborating with @polymuse.tech , a Vancouver-based AR scanning app supporting artists! Currently available on Apple Pro phones 13-16 (and coming soon to Android)! We did a collaboration creating a school program Playlist on Terry Fox - Search on CubeCommons! Creating and sharing Playlists is a way to engage teachers and students with reading materials, audio and video interviews, downloadable activities, and AR scans making it easier than ever to bring art education into any classroom! The future is collective, and CubeCommons is making it possible for anyone to bring together the different perspectives of trusted #organizations , #researchers , #knowledge keepers and #artists . And best of all—no ads!

A long weekend creates that extra time to play! Whether you’re an artist looking to experiment with #kinetic #sculpture, or a parent with kids who love to build, #maquette making can be a great way to riddle out future projects or robotic concepts! #cubecommonsproductions is creating #withme videos in collaboration with artists who want to share tips, tricks and techniques they use to start projects in all kinds of materials. Artist @christopher.jacques.lacroix will help you plan and make the basic pieces to create moving parts in your maquette. This 11 minute video is a great place to start an #activity at #home in the #studio or #classroom . Search ‘Withme’ or ‘Learn’ on CubeCommons.ca/search

Officially Open Source we are excited to not only offer a platform and storage solution for artists and arts organizations looking to share documentation, research and learning tools in a safe space, but to also be sharing code! Organizations wanting to build their own database for artists to load materials or students to load research, can now fork our code on GitHub cubeca/cube and using our Readme file follow the instructions to set up the entire project and rebrand it in a day. We want to save community projects time and money so they use their resources to add more access and archiving tools that they can share with the cubeca repo; so all organizations can benefit from this shared tool set and funding that goes into online projects can have a greater impact. Our brand and UX are thanks to Glance Digital by @lanceocummings & Jon Maltby Fully Automatic Creative Ltd #commons #opensource #cubecommons #artsorganizations #learningtool #accessability #digitalcommons

This is a complex topic but decentralized storage and decision making have already had a positive impact on getting more civic participation in government policy writing. Such as in Taiwan, around laws created for ride share apps. Keep digging and don't get hung up on pyramid schemes;) there's more out there: /podcast/digital-democracy-is-within-reach-rerun /resources/blog-post/centralized-vs-decentralized-vs-distributed-networks-the-history-future/