Brooklyn-based creative Salome Asega turns STEM into STEAM by applying her Las Vegas technology upbringing towards her art. She was raised amongst a family of computer scientists and engineers, recalling how she was encouraged to tinker and engage with her in-home Silicon Valley.
“My natural inclination growing up in that environment was to rebel and do something a bit more ‘creative,’” said Asega. “What I learned kind of coming back to technology is that so much of how it develops and innovates and progresses is through play and experimentation, which is highly creative.”
She now leads the New Museum’s aptly named NEW INC program, an “incubator” program fostering a new generation of creatives. Asega herself is an alumna and prides herself on the initiative’s diversity: 70% of participants are people of color and 80% are women or gender non-conforming.
Asega’s own work travels far and wide, both literally and figuratively. Her mediums range from sculptures to virtual reality and she’s exhibited and presented everywhere from the Brooklyn Museum to Shanghai. So while others may fear the unknown—especially given emerging technology’s shaky history in communities of color—Asega embraces unexplored artistic frontiers in order to serve artistically just purposes.
“There’s a lot of healthy skepticism and fear of certain technologies because we’ve seen previously how things have been used to create harm or surveil vulnerable communities,” she said. “[At NEW INC], we don’t shy away from those conversations. We don’t just welcome the shiny new tool because it’s shiny. We have critical conversations about emerging technology and find ways to make sure that we’re reifying the problem as artists or creative people when we adopt.
“Many of the people in our program are our early adopters, so trying to make sure that when we are experimenting and exploring a new tool that we’re also considering what the challenges are not, just the opportunities.”
As for future forays, Asega plans on exploring video games. The connection between creativity, storytelling and technology just makes sense to her.
“Building these worlds through games was always exciting for me,” said Asega. “And [they] let me know that technology could be a medium for reaching audiences and reaching people.”
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.