Co-Founders

Kerry Richardson and Steve Ciampaglia

Kerry Richardson is a socially engaged media artist who works primarily in community-based collaborations. Her Plug-in Studio work has been exhibited at Reinberger Gallery and think[box] Gallery (Cleveland); LIKELIKE Gallery (Pittsburgh); and Hyde Park Art Center, Sullivan Galleries and Bit Bash Interactive Arts Festival (Chicago). Her solo video work has screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Museum of Disability History (Buffalo), Gallery 400 (Chicago), the Chicago Cultural Center, and internationally at film festivals. The Plug-In Studio were awarded a Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art in 2015 and the Illinois Arts Council Interdisciplinary/Computer-Based Arts Fellowship in 2020. Their projects were funded by the Propeller Fund, Chicago Art Department and the Shapiro Center for Research and Collaboration. She has presented her research and work at Pax West, SXSW, Stanford University, the University of Chicago, Columbia University and the MIT Media Lab.

She is currently a Full-time Lecturer at Case Western Reserve University where she teaches new media, videogame design and video art in the Studio Art Program.

Contact: kerry@pluginstudio.net

Dr. Steve Ciampaglia is a new media community artist and the Champney Family Endowed Associate Professor of Art at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Art. His research areas include critical theory, arts and public policy, community arts, critical pedagogy, art + tech, media arts education, media and marketing literacy, and public humanities. He has presented his artwork and research at MIT, Stanford University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago. He has been published in the Harvard Educational Review, Studies in Art Education, and the Journal of Social Theory in Art Education.

Contact: steve@pluginstudio.net

Collaborations in art + technology

The Plug-In Studio is a socially engaged new media artist collective. We collaborate with members of diverse communities to make video games, interactive kinetic sculpture, augmented reality graffiti, soft circuits and other art with technology. Our projects incorporate programming, engineering, and design in a critical context. You can see our past projects here.

Tactical pedagogy

When we lived in Chicago, the Plug-In Studio offered many free classes and workshops in partnership with different nonprofits. Our programming served as an incubator for contemporary art curriculum at the same time it provided experiences that most Chicago Public Schools students did not have in their K-12 classrooms. We used Scratch, Arduino, littleBits, and Squishy Circuits as art-making tools, rooting them firmly in the contemporary practices of art & technology and new media art. We hoped to redefine the art curriculum as technological, critical, contemporary, and--in this time of intense pressure on our schools--relevant.

An advocacy initiative

We introduced creative computing, programming and robotics to laypeople, children and adolescents so that they can become critical producers of programmable media (apps, video games, digital animations and electronic toys) rather than passive consumers. incorporate programming, engineering, art and design in a critical context. We take our resources to community centers, arts organizations, park districts, schools and public libraries and introduce creative computing, engineering, programming and robotics to laypeople, children and adolescents so that they can become critical producers of programmable media rather than passive consumers.

Awards and recognition

• 2020 Fellowship Award in Interdisciplinary / Computer-Based Arts from the Illinois Arts Council.

• 2015 Fellows A Blade of Grass Fellowship for Socially Engaged Art.

• The warGames Tactical Media Collective was named 2019 Core Residents at Chicago Art Department. We were selected under the theme of CONTEMPORARY CONVERSATIONS.