History, Theory, Connectivity

Techspressionist Salon 104

March 5, 2026

History, Theory, Connectivity invites you into a shared conversation about how tools, bodies, and ideas shape what we know and make, together. We’ll begin with an opening conversation between our three featured guests, situating the lens in the 1950s, when Abstract Expressionism and early computational experiments emerged in tandem. Then, 40 minutes of moderated dialogue among all three participants, followed by open discussion from all salon participants.

Moderator

Renata Janiszewska – Lion’s Head, Canada  

Renata Janiszewska is an artist who thrives across disciplines. She creates digital and analog works, brings still images to life, and composes music to accompany her visuals. As a moderator, she connects scholarly inquiry to studio practice. As well, she organizes salons and exhibitions. At The Dreamer’s Lair Studios, she’s at work on Artless, a forthcoming book of her artworks, which is anything but.

Renata will be joined by co-moderator Michael Pierre Price.

Guests in order of appearance:

Helen A. Harrison  

Helen is an art historian, museum director, and journalist specializing in modern American art, with degrees from Adelphi University (A.B., studio art) and Case Western Reserve University (M.A., art history). She directed the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center from 1990 until her retirement in 2024, previously curating at the Parrish Art Museum and Guild Hall, and leading Manhattan’s Public Art Preservation Committee. A longtime critic and author, she wrote for The New York Times (1978–2006), penned the “Eye on Art” column (2010–2020), and has contributed essays to leading journals and major exhibition catalogues. She has taught at the School of Visual Arts and Stony Brook University, lectured widely, and hosted “Art Waves” on WLIU 88.3 FM; she is also the author of five art-world mystery novels. She is a founder and advisor to Techspressionism. Helen lives in Sag Harbor, NY.

Catherine Mason 

Catherine Mason was born in Australia, raised in the United States, and trained in Britain. She holds a History of Art degree from Birkbeck and a Master’s in Museums & Gallery Management from City University. A leading historian of computer and digital art since the CACHe Project in 2002, she has authored A Computer in the Art Room, co-edited White Heat, Cold Logic (MIT Press), and most recently published Creative Simulations (Springer). Her writing appears in outlets such as Studio International and Leonardo, and she has advised and served on panels for organizations including SIGGRAPH, The Art Fund, the British Computer Society, and the Lumen Art Prize. She has recently become a Visiting Research and Knowledge Exchange Fellow in the Department of Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Angela Ferraiolo

Angela Ferraiolo is a systems artist focused on open-endedness, self-organization, morphogenesis, and adaptive processes. She has held a residency at the Intelligent Engineering Lab at Soka University in Tokyo and lectured for School of X/xCoAx in Weimar. Her professional background includes roles at RKO, H2O Studios, Westwood Studios, and Electronic Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally at venues such as SIGGRAPH, ISEA, EVA, xCoAx, Art Machines 2, the New York Film Festival, Courtisane, AEFF, and the International Conference of Generative Art. Based in New York, she co-chairs visual and studio arts at Sarah Lawrence College, where she founded the computational arts program in new genres and is developing projects in adaptive systems and open-ended evolution.