The new Thoughtworks Arts residency in San Francisco has been awarded to a team of three artists working across media with a focus on remote collaboration and distributed storytelling.

The team’s project was proposed in response to an Open Call by Thoughtworks Arts for artists to explore the democratization of AI via blockchain.

During their residency, artists Max Razdow, Ollie Razdow and Jamie Zigelbaum will work together developing a generative storytelling project, titled, All Possible Pathways. The project is a science fiction based narrative concerning AI’s future, co-authored and illustrated by Zigelbaum and Max Razdow and input into a decentralized public blockchain ledger.

The blockchain-based text will then be recomposed by Ollie Razdow through software coded at Thoughtworks Arts in San Francisco. It will output an audio visual interpretation that changes each time it appears. The artists believe their work both informs and challenges the relationship between AI, its democratization, and its social impacts.

The team will also receive additional support from the creative blockchain lab SnarkArt and the decentralized AI network creators SingularityNet.

Max Razdow is an artist, writer, and teacher living in Boston, MA. He has taught art practice and theory at New York University, University of Massachusetts and Lesley University, and has shown his drawings and text based works internationally, and co-founded the online art theory journal Speculative Arts Research.

Ollie Razdow is a programmer and electronic musician. Starting his journey in the world of music, he moved into programming by implementing sound synthesis programs from scratch. Moving on to a degree in computer science, from Boston University, he is now working on an interpreted language for sound synthesis.

Jamie Zigelbaum is an artist, designer, and engineer living in New York and Spain. He was the founding director of Midnight Commercial, a creative studio working across disciplines. In 2010, he received the Designer of the Future award from Design Miami/ Basel. He holds a Masters in Media Arts and Science from the MIT Media Lab.

The residency is scheduled to begin in San Francisco at the end of September, and will conclude at the end of January. Stay tuned for updates and insights on their developing project.