jon bernson

Emmy arrived! Thanks and respect to everyone that brought Reeducated to life: @mrwolson for his direction and vision @benmauk for his writing and reporting @matty_huynh for his artwork @nixthenix our lead animator and technical supervisor and @dirtempirenyc @n0elpaul for the color @soojeong1 and @newyorkermag for their belief and support. Thanking the Academy has become a super trope, but receiving this award has made the feeling of gratitude very real; they considered our film vs much larger teams with much higher budgets, so I am doubly thankful that the members recognized Reeducated as an outstanding example of interactive media. It didn’t come easy and most importantly, it was critical to bringing this story to life. #reeducated

I’m thrilled to announce that Interview with Traveler #582 will premiere at the Arizona International Film Festival! This short film is the latest installment of my Third Eye Moonwalk project and the result of an incredible team of artistic collaborators, producers, orgs, funders and donors. I’m profoundly thankful to my amazing co-director Lisa Steindler and dream team of producers: Amy Mueller, Jenna Welch, Jessica Bird Beza and Seth Wiley. Since receiving our first grant, COVID threw up walls that felt insurmountable at times, but the delays allowed for some major re-imaginings and the project has only grown as a result. 582 is a two-hander that features two of my favorite actors on the planet: Sarita Ocón (Traveler #582) and Robert Parsons (District Manager). Our DP Martin Legarrigues worked absolute magic and Colm McNally completely aced the production design. Vidhu Singh lent us the perfect touch with her dramaturgy and Jenna Welch, as costumer, was a true world builder. Colorist Noel Paul performed actual video alchemy to reach the final cut. Third Eye Moonwalk was awarded two grants in 2019; one from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation (New Experimental Work) in partnership with Playwrights Foundation and one from the Venturous Theater Fund (in partnership with Encore Theatre). Both granting orgs were tremendously flexible in the face of the plague, so I’m doubly appreciative for their openness to the needs of artists throughout all the insanity. Third Eye Moonwalk continues to thrive, in no small measure, due to past support from Catharine Clark, Anton Stuebner & Aubree Mladenovic from Catharine Clark Gallery / BOXBLUR, Deborah & Andy Rappaport, Julie Casemore from Minnesota Street Project, Jean Chadbourne from The Growlery, Michael and Katherine Hoch from Drop Forge & Tool, Z Space, This Will Take Time and Stanford University. The sum from these parts means the world to me. 📹☁️🤍📺☁️🤍🎼 #thirdeyemoonwalk #traveler582 #interviewwithtraveler582 @azfilmfest #582 #AzFF #AzFF31 #experimentalshort #jonbernson @pwfoundation

The Peabody finally arrived! “For co-creating powerful immersive evidence of life inside mass internment camps and bearing witness to the profound resolve of survivors in defense of their personal and collective humanity, Reeducated wins a Peabody.” Thanks again to our entire team! I hope that this VR doc continues to raise awareness about the internment camps in Xinjiang, the largest scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since WWII. #reeducated #vrdocumentary #xinjiang

Cleared by Fire won the Peabody Award in the Immersive and Interactive category! Thanks again to our entire team. I hope this film continues to raise awareness about the tragic Haditha massacre. #clearedbyfire #interactivemedia #interactivedocumentary #haditha

I’m honored to be featured by the Culture Keepers project, which generously supported my recent production of The Naturalists, along with 20 other artists working at the intersection of storytelling, art, and culture. The new CK site is a love letter to Bay Area creativity, with a dedicated page for each artist and a new collection of interviews, photos, and videos. I’m grateful not only for the grant, but for the amazing people behind the project (Jacob Pritzker, Vanessa Canarena-Arredondo, Jean Melesaine, Leo Maco, Weyland Southon, and many more), who shot a mini-doc about my work and studio practice that reaches for something deeper than the usual artist profile. Check out my page (and the others) at TheCultureKeepers.org [link in bio].

Scenes from The Naturalists! Thanks to everyone who joined us for our opening weekend! 🔭🤍🔭 Photos by @andiethornton ! The Naturalists Group is a collective of scientists whose radical discoveries challenge widely held assumptions about the world. Operating beyond the reach of traditional institutions, they convene a small circle of private investors each year on a remote Pacific atoll, pitching their latest inventions to secure the funding that keeps their laboratory alive. The play unfolds across two interwoven timelines. In the present, a sequence of lectures unfolds as each scientist unveils work that promises to reshape reality itself. Between these presentations, the story flashes back to the week before the summit, marked by the recent death of one of the Naturalists and escalating financial strain that threatens their fragile order.

I’m thrilled to announce that Chronological Experiments by The Naturalists Group is an Official Selection of the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival in New York! In this 360° VR mockumentary, a renegade collective of scientists films a pitch video for a group of anonymous investors, revealing the tensions between the pursuit of truth and the financial power structures that sustain it. Featuring: Yereny Fuentes G. Brent Lindsay Jamie Nakama Stephen K. Patterson Amy Pinto Jennifer Welch The film features many of the same actors appearing in my upcoming stage production, The Naturalists, in collaboration with The Imaginists. More info and tickets via the festival website. East Village Cinema New York, NY March 13–14 #PhilipKDickFestival #VRfilm #ExperimentalFilm #ScienceFiction #thenaturalists

Thrilled to announce The Naturalists, my new play and collaboration with The Imaginists! If you’re not yet familiar with this extraordinary ensemble of artists and gold-hearted humans, your ship just came in. Working with this cast on my first play since the pandemic is a double dream come true. I really hope you can join us. Endless thanks to @bayareaculturekeepers for life-giving support. Show description and tickets at the link in my bio. Seats are limited!

Our current show features art by Jon Bernson (@jon_bernson ), an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning media artist whose interdisciplinary practice blends film, music, installation, and theater. His work incorporates layered world-building to explore existential themes with a slow-burn, tragicomic style. This approach has been supported through artist residencies at the de Young Museum, Playwrights Foundation, The Space Program, and The Imaginists. Recent work includes Third Eye Moonwalk, which has been exhibited in various forms at Minnesota Street Project, Catharine Clark Gallery, Stanford University, Custom Made Theater, and The Growlery. Bernson received grants from the Rainin Foundation (New & Experimental Works) and the Venturous Theater Fund to produce Interview with Traveler #582, an experimental film that premiered at the Arizona International Film Festival, Sci-Fi-London, and Festival Fotogenía in Mexico. Other installations include Sound Affects, a multimedia collaboration at Sonos Studio in Los Angeles, and Beautification Machine, a sound sculpture created with Andy Diaz Hope. Exhibited at Catharine Clark Gallery, Saint Joseph’s Art Society, and Miami Project; the work was acquired by the Nevada Museum of Art for its permanent collection. Ideal Solutions is Bernson’s latest addition to The Naturalists, an ongoing project that he is developing into an interactive performance with The Imaginists. Previous installments include Zero Gravity Experiments (360-degree photography), Primary Sources (video installation), and Chronological Experiments by the Naturalists Group (VR short film). PIECE Ideal Solutions by The Naturalists Group, 2025 Video installation on seven iMacs Caption continued in comments👇

Close Calls - Both Side Convenience! Edition of 180 gram white vinyl limited to 150 copies and only available via Bandcamp. Both Side Convenience is a collection of 33 very short songs by Michael Zapruder and myself. We are super excited to finally share this record on Howells Transmitter, our label and declaration of musical independence of nearly 20 years. As they say in the infomercials, “Act now!” As they say on Instagram, “Link in bio!” If you’d prefer not to act now or have an aversion to bio links then you’re only option is to come to our release show on Sat 5/3 at Santo Recording in Oakland. We will be joined by space/time partners in crime, @push_the_feeling @pacificwalkerisaband @qualiaisreal @santorecording @jasonkick 🎤🎹🤍

This is your invite to our RECORD RELEASE PARTY on May 3rd at Santo Recording! Close Calls is excited to share the stage with Pacific Walker, Qualia and DJ sets by Push the Feeling! Tix and records will be available at the show, but there’s no need to defer your dreams: order a copy of our vinyl limited edition LP via our Bandcamp page. We appreciate all your support and hope to see you at Santo! 🧡📞⏺️🎤🧡

We are live! Check out The New Yorker’s CLEARED BY FIRE, an interactive documentary scored, sound designed, and mixed by yours truly! For the full immersive experience, we recommend watching/listening on a laptop or computer with headphones. As the format implies, the doc is interactive, drawing comparisons to visual novels, video games, VR, and other immersive mediums. There are 12 chapters in total, and the material is heavy, so take your time and use the navigation menu at the top left of the screen to explore at your own pace. [Link in bio.] Many thanks to our brilliant co-directors @mrwolson and @david.kofahl for bringing me on board to support this powerful and heartbreaking story. Much respect to @emilianoponzi for the haunting illustrations, @iguessnick and @aviva.tny for the tasteful art direction, and Madeline Baran and the amazing In the Dark reporting team, who spent years uncovering this story. The @newyorkermag made this visionary project possible with help from the @pulitzercenter and an amazing team of contributors. My deepest thanks to everyone involved! One last plug: check out In the Dark, the excellent podcast that this doc accompanies. Every episode is great, so give that a listen! #clearedbyfire #inthedark #interactive #interactivedocumentary #scoring #sounddesign