Info
Ryan Kuo lives and works in New York City. His works are process-based and diagrammatic and often invoke a person or people arguing. This is not to state an argument about a thing, but to be caught in a state of argument. His projects have taken form as recursive scripts and circular narratives, self-playing game environments, desktop interfaces, business dashboards, technical documentation, slideshow animations, and experimental publications.
Recent works include an audio work that mimics business systems crashing and recovering; a memory engine presented as a self-playing biographical RPG; a hateful little intervention at whitney.org; an experimental comic book about farming automation; and an artist’s book about aspirational workflows, File: A User’s Manual, modeled after software guides for power users.
His work has appeared at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), M+ (Hong Kong), Hessel Museum of Art (Annandale-on-Hudson), Queens Museum (NYC), bitforms gallery (NYC), TRANSFER (LA), left gallery (Berlin), and Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts (Cambridge), and has been published in Artforum, Art in America, BOMB, and Rhizome. He was a 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellow and a resident at Triangle Arts (NYC), the Center for Afrofuturist Studies (Iowa City), Pioneer Works (NYC), and the Queens Museum Studio Program (NYC).
He holds a Master of Science in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT.
He is not a programmer.
Solo exhibitions and projects
- 2022Puzzle, M+, Kowloon, Hong Kong
- 2021Hateful Little Thing, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- 2018The Pointer, Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY
- 2018Yes, or else then, Art Contemporary Club, Montreal, QC, Canada
- 2016Are You Sure, Front/Space, Kansas City, MO
Group exhibitions and screenings
- 2025Intercession, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
- 2024One to Zero, Feral File, Online
- 2022Conceptions of White, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina, SK, Canada
- 2022Creation Stories, Gus Fisher Gallery, Auckland, NZ
- 2022Shall Make, Shall Be, Federal Hall National Memorial, New York, NY
- 2021Pieces of Me, Transfer Gallery x left gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2021Message Received, Boston Cyberarts, Boston, MA
- 2021Turing's Lover, Jinan Art Museum, Jinan, China
- 2020Plicnik Space Initiative, D02.2, London, England
- 2020Well Now WTF?, Silicon Valet, San Francisco, CA
- 2019Virtual Beings, Transfer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2019Olaph the Oxman, Copperfield Gallery, London, England
- 2019left gallery: rite of access, Stroom Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands
- 2019Whatever Works, Whatever It Takes, Goethe-Institut China, Beijing, China
- 2018A Non-thematic Just Celebrating Digital Diversity Online Exhibition.html, OUTPUT, Shanghai, China
- 2018Rencontres Internationales: Fiction Machines, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
- 2018Salon #1: Identity, The Current Museum, New York, NY
- 2017Collapse of Vision, Equity Gallery, New York, NY
- 2016California Imaginary, Industry Lab, Cambridge, MA
- 2016Left Gallery Summer Selection, Neumeister Bar-Am, Berlin, Germany
- 2016Dual 3, Dual Club, Burgos, Spain
- 2016The Future of the Left, Spike Art Quarterly at Yvonne Lambert, Berlin, Germany
- 2016Speeding and Braking: Navigating Acceleration, Goldsmiths, London, England
- 2016Grounded, Boston Cyberarts, Boston, MA
- 2016After Aesthetics, Bar Babette, Berlin, Germany
- 2016[Title missing on current CV], Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, MA
- 2015Changes, Industry Lab, Cambridge, MA
- 20156TH SENSE, MINIBAR, Stockholm, Sweden
- 2014Public Space? Lost & Found, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA
- 2013Something Very Specific, 328 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
- 2010MISC Video and Performance, N.Y. Studio Gallery, New York, NY
- 2008LOOP Barcelona, LOOP Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Commissions
- 2020Baby Faith, Jigsaw x Rhizome, New York, NY
- 2018Queens International 2018: Volumes, Queens Museum, Queens, NY
Awards and grants
- 2022Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Miami, FL
- 2018Rhizome Microgrant for Net Art, Rhizome, New York, NY
Collections
- 2024Collected by KADIST, San Francisco, CA
- 2023Collected by SFMOMA Library, San Francisco, CA
- 2021Collected by The Whitney Museum of American Art / artport, New York, NY
- 2021Collected by Rhizome / ArtBase, New York, NY
- 2018Collected by The Current Museum, New York, NY
Residencies
- 2025Triangle DUMBO Residency, Triangle Arts Association, New York, NY
- 2022The Center for Afrofuturist Studies, The Center for Afrofuturist Studies, Iowa City, IA
- 2021The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
- 2019Pioneer Works Technology Residency, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY
- 2018Queens Museum Studio Program, Queens Museum, Queens, NY
- 2017NEA Art Works Residency, Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, NY
- 2016Neo Future, Arteles Creative Center, Haukijärvi, Finland
Selected publications
- 2025"ASK (Autonomous System of Knowledge)" (forthcoming), DATA browser 09: Indexing Imaginaries, Open Humanities Press
- 2023Real Milk (with Veronica Graham), Most Ancient
- 2023"Artist Profile: American Artist", Rhizome, Rhizome
- 2023"Doc 091", Interlude Docs, Interlude Docs
- 2022"The Truth of the Matter", HOLO 3, HOLO
- 2022"Artist Profile: Nathalie Lawhead", Rhizome, Rhizome
- 2021"Square Hole", Sequencing, Fulcrum Arts
- 2020"Keep Trollin'", Software for Artists Book: Building Better Realities, Pioneer Works Press
- 2017"In Submission", “Tables of Content”, and “Building a Table”, Art Journal Open, Art Journal Open
Selected bibliography
- 2024AI Gods and Girlfriends, Alice Scope, The Lab Mag
- 2024Graphical User Interference, David Caterini, Afterimage
- 2023Programmable Life: Artist Ryan Kuo in Conversation, Kerry Doran, Kate Gu, and Ryan Kuo, M+ Magazine
- 2023Family Atlas, Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, M+ Magazine
- 2022Ryan Kuo – Hateful Little Thing, Neural, Neural
- 2022Ryan Kuo & Zach Gage, Zach Gage and Ryan Kuo, Outland
- 2022A Poetics of the Glaze, Darla Migan, Shift Space
- 2022Walking Along an Undulating Horizon, Theodor Ussay, 回歸線 (Re-Turn)
- 2021w/Ryan Kuo, Kit Son Lee, CTRL SHIFT
- 2021On Platform Design, Part II: On RSS and the Theory of Communicative Labour, Yin Aiwen, so-far
- 2020Keep Trollin’, Tommy Martinez and Ryan Kuo, Pioneer Works Broadcast
- 2020A Conversation with Ryan Kuo, Brett Wallace, Conversation Project NYC
- 2020Interview with Ryan Kuo, Laurel Schwulst, Fruitful School
- 2019The Artists' Artists, DeForrest Brown, Jr., Artforum
- 2019Whiteness and Software, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Ryan Kuo, Art in America
- 2018Alien and Sedition: Ryan Kuo Interviewed by Kent Szlauderbach, Kent Szlauderbach, BOMB
- 2018How Does a Museum Collect Software?, Ben Fino-Radin and Lorena Ramírez López, The Current Museum on Drip
- 2018The Family Dynamic, Presented in a Never-Ending Series of Pop-Up Windows, Drew Millard, The Outline
- 2017Humanity and Technology Collide in Collapse of Vision at Equity Gallery, Audra Lambert, Huffington Post
- 2017Artist Profile: Ryan Kuo, Celine Katzman, Rhizome.org
- 2017Tables for Days, Levi Rubeck, Unwinnable
- 2017Ryan Kuo, David Wolinsky, Don't Die
- 2016What's in a Rave, Nora Khan, POSTmatter
Selected public speaking
- 2023Office Hours : Puzzle with Ryan Kuo and Tommy Martinez, livestream with Celine Wong Katzman, Rhizome, New York, NY
- 2022Triggering the Troll Bots, podcast with Tommy Martinez and Lee Tusman, Artists and Hackers, New York, NY
- 2021Talks, radio broadcast, Montez Press Radio, New York, NY
- 2021The Forum, with DeForrest Brown, Jr., The Lab, San Francisco, CA
- 2021NFT Aesthetics, moderated by Michael Connor, Rhizome, New York, NY
- 2021Exhaust, moderated by Murtaza Vali and invited by Maryam Monalisa Gharavi, Sonic Acts, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- 2020Salon Night: Virtual Beings, with Stephanie Dinkins and Nora Khan, Transfer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2019Code Kitchen, with Angeline Meitzler, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY
- 2018Access and Agency, with Nora Khan, Queens Museum, Queens, NY
- 2018Living Content Live, with Luciana Solano, Times Square Space, New York, NY
- 2018Black Stroke White Fill, with American Artist, Bitforms Gallery, New York, NY
- 2016Ryan and Panoramical, podcast with Tevis Thompson, Close Playing, Online
- 2015Process: In Medias Res, lecture-performance, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Selected visiting appearances
- 2024Visiting artist, Agential Worldbuilding, School for Poetic Computation, New York, NY
- 2024Visiting artist, Visiting Designer Lecture Series, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
- 2022Visiting artist, Studio Art, Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA
- 2022Visiting artist, Spring Graphic Design Speaker Series + RISD Code Lab, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
- 2020Visiting artist, MFA Visiting Artist Series, Parsons Fine Arts, New York, NY
- 2020Visiting artist, Artist Statement: A User Guide, School for Poetic Computation, New York, NY
- 2019Visiting artist, Language Pieces, Bard at Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn, NY
- 2019Visiting critic, ITP Thesis Review, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, New York, NY
- 2019Visiting instructor, Interferences workshop, Knowlton School of Architecture, Columbus, OH
- 2019Visiting critic, Art, Culture and Technology final review, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- 2018Visiting artist lecture, Integrated Digital Media, NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, NY
- 2015Visiting artist, Process: In Medias Res workshop, Carpenter Center for Visual Arts, Cambridge, MA
Curatorial projects
- 2024One to Zero (with Viktor Timofeev), Feral File, Online
- 2016Formats, Industry Lab, Cambridge, MA
Education
- 2014M.S. Art, Culture and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- 2008M.D. candidate, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT
- 2004A.B. History of Art and Architecture, Harvard College, Cambridge, MA