Ken Rinaldo

"Signs" is an experimental film that urges us to rethink the overlooked environmental messages in our urban landscapes. It highlights the hidden ecological costs of modern life—carbon emissions from cars, the internet’s energy demand, and the accelerating climate crisis. The film challenges us to reimagine urban signs as tools for environmental awareness, connecting issues like technology, rising sea levels, and natural disasters. These urgent concerns are rarely reflected in the signage that shapes our daily experiences. Beyond awareness, Signs advocates for signs that promote environmental justice, question data exploitation, and expose how consumer choices impact the planet. It envisions a world where everyday signs provoke reflection, challenging us to see the deeper ecological consequences of our actions. "Signs" invites viewers to scrutinize the messages missing from our daily landscape and to question whether the signs around us truly serve the public good by warning us of unseen yet impending dangers. It’s a call to rethink the role of signage in our urban spaces and to demand more from the information we encounter every day.

Plant Consciousness: Root Scan: A collaborative work premiered at the SPIN Gallery in Dallas Texas curated and commissioned by Dr Charissa Terranova. (SOUND UP) Always a joy to work with Amy Youngs in imaging and creation of new art and installation. "A unique part of the plant root, the root apex (or apices, which are the pointed ends of the root system) is a combination sensitive finger, perceiving sensory organ, and brain neuron. Each root hair, rootlet, and root section contains an apex; every root mass millions, even billions, of them. For example, a single rye plant has more than 13 million rootlets, with a combined length of 680 miles. Each of the rootlets are covered with root hairs, over 14 billion of them, with a combined length of 6,600 miles. Every rootlet, every root hair, has at its end a root apex. Every root apex acts as a neuronal organ in the root system. In contrast, the human brain has approximately 86 billion neurons, about 16 billion of which are in the cerebral cortex. Plants with larger root systems, and more root hairs, can have considerably more brain neurons than the 14 billion contained in rye plants; they can even rival the human brain in the number of neurons." Gratitude to Trademark Gunderson for the soundtrack.

Honored to be presenting across the Departments of Art & Art History and Future of Humanity studies and Civic Engagement at San José State University. I’m especially excited to encounter the new projects and research emerging from SJSU, and to share a set of in-process works that extend my ongoing explorations of living systems, AI, and emergent ecologies. There’s also something personally meaningful about returning to Silicon Valley—where aspects of my work were first Roboticized—making this visit feel like both a continuation and a return. #KenRinaldo #SJSU #SanJoseState #ArtistTalk #ArtLecture #NewMediaArt #MediaArt #BioArt #ArtAndScience #ArtAndTechnology #AIArt #RoboticsArt #InteractiveArt #ContemporaryArt #DigitalArt #EmergentSystems #LivingSystems #Symbiosis #EcologicalArt #MoreThanHuman #FutureOfHumanity #CivicEngagement #InterdisciplinaryArt #CreativeTechnology #ProcessArt #InProgress #StudioPractice #SiliconValley #BayAreaArt #ArtCommunity

My neighborhood is awesome. Sohud fools parade proves it.

The Evolution of Information IS Life video. The work is on view at the Organic Worlds Exhibition at the SPIN Gallery until April 28, curated by Dr Charissa Terranova at the University of Texas in Dallas until the end of April. As the video is only 3 min and the soundtrack is 10 min it jumps around a bit. For the full soundtrack see the link in first comment.

28,000 Columbus residents came out to protest..solidarity..

This will be an exciting evening of talks. Please join us. Link in comment.

Excited to share dialogues with these two brilliant and accomplished artists next Tuesday March 10th. Please join us.

Organic Murmurations, 2016 - 26, by Ken Rinaldo Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art Feb. 7- April 28, 2026 Featuring the work of Ken Rinaldo and Amy M. Youngs. Curated by Dr. Charrissa Terranova @ken.rinaldo @amy_youngs #organicworlds #symbiogenesis @utdbass @bassart #bass #utdbass

The Symbiogenesis installation examines mitochondria and how they connect us to plants, insects, fungi, fish and most living things. Are you aware that anywhere between 10-18 percent of your body by weight, are these foreign organelles, that give you all this energy and are primarily passed down from your mom? This show is still open at the SPIN Gallery at the University of Texas in Dallas and was curated and commissioned by Dr Charissa Terranova for the Organic Worlds exhibition that also features new works by Amy Youngs.

Please join us for this presentation and discussion Tomorrow February 26th. We will be discussing how living systems and symbiotic relationships represent the future of collaboration for humans and more than human others. Thanks to Dr Roger Malina for this invite, and to Dr Charissa Terranova for making this all possible with her commissions and invitation to premiere many new artworks at the extraordinary SPIN Gallery at The University of Texas in Dallas. Thanks also to Brian Scott and Danielle Avram for making this exhibition sing and sparkle.

Organic Worlds features the world wide premiere of Anicca Antennae: Soil as Brain by Ken Rinaldo Curated and commissioned by Dr. Charrissa Terranova. Feb. 7- April 25, 2026 This is an emergent system with soil and bacteria interacting with isopods, springtails, mosses and a dwarf palm. The isopod movements are being tracked with software and that controls these custom robots with one antennae along with numerous insect voices. As the robots navigate this techno-ecosystem a pink dome is popular with the isopods, revealing a unique and complex isopod umwelt. "Biology is more than genes, pharmaceuticals, and natural selection. Before any of these, biology is historical, modeled by where, when, and how it is written, bearing the legible marks of a cultural moment like rings on a tree or plaque on a tooth. Every quality of biology is thus situated in time and circumstance. Genes function properly inside of cells; drugs are profit engines for pharmaceutical companies; and natural selection is one circle of selective activity among others operating within earth’s atmosphere. So, life is almost always coupled to other life. It is symbiotic. Symbiogenesis is the leading theory of evolution, which is based on symbiotic cooperation between microbes occurring millions of years ago, as mitochondria and chloroplasts, organelles essential to the metabolism of animal and plant cells, bear the DNA of once free-ranging microbes. " Dr Terranova @ken.rinaldo #organicworlds #symbiogenesis @utdbass @bassart #bass #utdbass Grateful to coders: Trademark Gunderson & Devin Powell, The University of Texas Dallas, The Ohio State Glass area: glass-gurus David King & Gayle Van Marter & Danner Seyfer Sprague for this 3D prototyping prowess. Thanks to Brian Scott preparator extroridinaire and Gallery Director Danielle Avram and deep gratitude to curator Dr Charissa Terranova for support of these new projects and her scholarship surrounding bio art.