Edrex Fontanilla
Edrex Fontanilla is a new media artist whose practice fuses sculptural and computational methods to examine perception, materiality, and temporality. For twenty-five years he has built objects that sit between sculpture and projection, between writing and pattern, and between place and liminal space, and has asked the viewer to interrogate their perception of reality.
In 2006 Fontanilla introduced the term mutable sculpture. A mutable sculpture layers projected image and physical surface so that the object takes on the properties of a virtual correlate, and at any moment what the viewer sees could be naturally occurring emanations, or digital fabrications. He first used the term as invited plenary speaker at the Digital Humanities Computing Summer Institute at the University of Victoria, set it out in the proceedings of the Ammerman Center's Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology in 2008, and once again in 2014.
His work has been shown internationally. S[tr]eam, made with Robert Goldschmidt, was selected by jury for Slow Art at SIGGRAPH 2008 in Los Angeles and remains catalogued in the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Show Archives. Overlooked 2.0 was installed as a featured work at TechFest at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 2014, with an accompanying invited lecture. Evanescence, a solo exhibition, was mounted at the Nepal Art Council National Art Gallery in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2019. Since 2022, virtual reality work made with Sarah Nelson Wright has toured continuously through five New York museums and institutional galleries.
His work is held in the permanent collections of Arrow Electronics and of Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates.
Current & Forthcoming
Liminal Luminance — Brown University, Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI. With Robert Goldschmidt. Opening August 2026.
Changing Landscapes: Research and Fieldwork — Hewitt Gallery of Art, Marymount Manhattan College, NYC. Curated by Hallie Cohen with Adrienne Baxter Bell and Beth Shipley. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Solo Exhibitions
Evanescence — Nepal Art Council National Art Gallery, Kathmandu, Nepal
Erosion — Sierra Arts Gallery, Reno, NV. Juried by the Sierra Arts Committee. With Robert Goldschmidt.
Selected Exhibitions
Shifting Sands — Water Stories, BioBAT Art Space, Brooklyn Army Terminal, NYC. Curated by Elena Soterakis. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Tomorrow's Sea — ALTER ECO, Arsenal Gallery, NYC Parks, Central Park, NYC. Curated by Ash Cortes. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Shifting Sands — Vulnerable Landscapes, Staten Island Museum, NYC. Curated by Rylee Eterginoso. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Tomorrow's Sea (premiere) — Art at the BlueLine, South Street Seaport, NYC. Produced by the Waterfront Alliance with the South Street Seaport Museum. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Listening to Dutch Kills — SWIM Coalition Public Art Project, Queens, NY. With Sarah Nelson Wright and Nathan Kensinger.
Juried exhibition, Loading Dock Gallery, Lowell, MA — Acquaintance (alpha) and Acquaintance (beta)
Open Engagement, Queens Museum, NYC — new VR work on the Bronx Kill, with Sarah Nelson Wright
"Wondering, Wandering" — Sierra Arts Gallery, Reno, NV. With Robert Goldschmidt.
The Ethical Viewer: Perceptual Fog, interactive sculpture — Cherry Creek Arts Festival, Denver, CO. One of seven finalists in the Arrow Five Years Out Art Challenge, an international competition selected from 117 submissions worldwide; $5,000 commission; entered Arrow Electronics' permanent art collection.
Acquaintance (alpha) and Acquaintance (beta), inkjet prints — Woven Heritage International Miniature Printmaking Exhibition, 2017 Dubai Art Week, UAE. Under the patronage of Her Excellency Sheikha Lubna Al Qasimi; permanent collection, Zayed University.
Tempest, Overlooked 2.0 — Digitalia, national juried exhibition of digital art, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, NY. Juried by Bruce Wands, Chair Emeritus, MFA Computer Art, School of Visual Arts. With Robert Goldschmidt.
Hidden Vistas — Chance Ecologies: Queens, Queens Museum, NYC. Curated by Catherine Grau and Nathan Kensinger. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Over the River, presented live as "Virtual Reality, Empathy, and Place" — Chance Ecologies: Newtown Creek, Queens, NY
Over the River — Radiator Gallery, Long Island City, NY. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Writhe, Overlooked 2.0 — LIC Arts Open, Reis Studios, Queens, NY. With Robert Goldschmidt.
Overlooked 2.0 — TechFest 2014, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India. Featured installation; invited speaker.
Sear, installation, laser projection, and performance — Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Offset, installation with computational text software — Granoff Center for the Creative Arts, Providence, RI
Lingua Ignota — Pixilerations v.6 (premiere), Providence, RI; performed at ELO: Archive & Innovate, 2010. With Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro.
S[tr]eam — SIGGRAPH 2008 "Slow Art" (juried), Los Angeles, CA; also Pixilerations v.5, Providence, RI. With Robert Goldschmidt. Catalogued in the ACM SIGGRAPH Art Show Archives.
Torrent — Pixilerations v.4, Providence, RI. With Robert Goldschmidt.
Cascade 01.02;27;14 and Cascade 01.02;59;09, digital prints — Inicio, Ybox Cigar Theatre, Ybor City, FL
Cascade 01.02;27;14, digital print — Baker Arts Center, Liberal, KS
Cascade — Pixilerations v.3, Providence, RI. With Robert Goldschmidt.
Cascade 01.02;27;14 and Cascade 01.02;59;09, digital prints — Calladan Gallery, Beverly, MA
Overlooked — underCURRENT/overVIEW, Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL; International Computer Music Conference, New Orleans, LA; University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Overlooked — Pixilerations v.2, Providence, RI; later the 10th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology and the Digital Humanities Summer Institute, Canada
c4b3r@r7$, interactive video and audio sculpture — Boston Cyberarts Festival, Boston, MA. With Ian Budish.
Rope & Wood, interactive sound sculpture — Boston Cyberarts Festival, Boston, MA
Immortek (performance) — E-Fest, Brown University, Providence, RI
Sound Capsule — MMLab Show, Brown University, Providence, RI
B!mboo, interactive image sculpture — David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI. With Jasper Speicher and Mark Domino.
Siliconic Harmonica, interactive sound sculpture — Manhasset Mill, Providence, RI
Brain Pick, interactive sound sculpture — Knight Campus Art Gallery, Community College of Rhode Island, Warwick, RI. With Paul Badger.
All the News That's Fit To…, interactive video sculpture — David Winton Bell Gallery, Providence, RI. With Jasper Speicher.
Panels, Talks & Symposia
Exhibiting-artists panel — Currents of Change: A Water Stories Symposium, BioBAT Art Space, NYC. With Sarah Nelson Wright, Nathan Kensinger, Keren Anavy, Christopher Lin, DB Lampman, and Ranjit Bhatnagar.
Artist in Conversation — ALTER ECO, Arsenal Gallery, Central Park, NYC
"Embodied Landscapes: Hidden Vistas + Tomorrow's Sea" — New Media Caucus Symposium (Future Bodies), VR Projects track, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA. With Sarah Nelson Wright.
Climate Art & Climate Science panel — Climate Week NYC, aboard tall ship Wavertree, South Street Seaport Museum, NYC. With Mary Mattingly, Matthew López-Jensen, Sarah Nelson Wright, and Kendra Krueger; moderated by Cortney Koenig Worrall (Waterfront Alliance).
Chance Ecologies Walk at Grand Army Plaza — Democracy Lab at the Space Buster, Brooklyn, NY
"Artists and Post-Industrial Urban Wilderness" — UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art, Brooklyn, NY
"Hidden Vistas: Empathy and Place in Virtual Reality Installations" — Chance Ecologies: Queens Symposium, Queens Museum, NYC
"Sear: A New Media Text Delivery System" — 14th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology, Connecticut College, New London, CT
Invited speaker — TechFest 2014, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India
"The Social Life of Dignity" — Saad Foundation Symposium, Gulf University for Science & Technology, West Mishref, Kuwait
"Lingua Ignota" — Third Language Creation Conference, Brown University, Providence, RI. With Samantha Gorman.
"Mutable Sculpture" — 11th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology, Ammerman Center, Connecticut College
"Mutable Sculpture: Intersections of Physical and Virtual Space" — invited plenary, Digital Humanities Computing Summer Institute, University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
"Sculptural Approaches in Video Art" — 10th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology, Ammerman Center, Connecticut College
Publications
Fontanilla, E., Juszczak, M., & Messina, R. "Emergence of Manichean Political Rhetoric — Theoretical Modeling of Predictive Frameworks." International Journal of Pedagogy, Innovation and New Technologies, 7(2), 78–87. DOI: 10.5604/01.3001.0014.6875.
Fontanilla, E. "The Ethical Viewer: Perceptual Fog." In Five Years of the Arrow Five Years Out Art Challenge, 2013–2017. Centennial, CO: Arrow Electronics. Edition of 250.
Silton, N.R., Fontanilla, E., Femia, M., & Rouse, K. "Employing Disability Simulations and Preliminary Virtual Reality Technology to Foster Cognitive and Affective Empathy towards Individuals with Disabilities." In N. Silton (Ed.), Scientific Concepts behind Happiness, Kindness and Empathy in Contemporary Society. IGI Global.
Fontanilla, E., & Wright, S.N. "Empathy for Place." Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture.
Fontanilla, E. "Sear: A New Media Text Delivery System." 14th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology Proceedings, Ammerman Center, Connecticut College.
Fontanilla, E., & Goldschmidt, R. "Mutable Sculpture." 11th Biennial Symposium on Arts & Technology Proceedings, Ammerman Center, Connecticut College.
Fontanilla, E. "Mutable Sculpture: Intersections of Physical and Virtual Space." Invited plenary, Digital Humanities Computing Summer Institute, University of Victoria.
Collections
Arrow Electronics — The Ethical Viewer: Perceptual Fog (permanent art collection, via the Arrow Five Years Out Art Commission, 2017; documented in Five Years of the Arrow Five Years Out Art Challenge, 2013–2017, Arrow Electronics, 2018)
Zayed University, UAE — Acquaintance (alpha) and Acquaintance (beta) (permanent collection, 2017)
Awards, Grants & Residencies
St. John's University Research Infrastructure Grant
St. John's University Research Infrastructure Grant
Getting to Zero in Dutch Kills Public Art Grant
Sierra Arts Gallery Grant
Arrow Five Years Out Art Commission — $5,000; international competition, 117 submissions
Queens Museum Studio in the Park Residency
Andrew G. Mellon Grant
Creative Arts Council Flexible Fund Grant, Brown University
Wayland Collegium Course Development Grant, Brown University
Minnie Helen Hicks Premium in Art, Brown University
Roberta Joslin Award for Excellence in Art, Brown University
Creative Arts Council Mini-Grant, Brown University
Selected Press
NBC New York — "Things to do in NYC: check out this free art exhibit about water" (Water Stories, Brooklyn Army Terminal)
Art Spiel — "Art and Technology NYC Exhibitions, November 2024"
City Life Org — "Free Art Exhibit 'Alter Eco' on Display at Arsenal Gallery"
New Media Caucus — "Tomorrow's Sea at ALTER ECO: Edrex Fontanilla and Sarah Nelson Wright"
Marymount Manhattan College News — "MMC Professor Lays Bare the Ravishes of Climate Change in New Exhibit" (Shifting Sands)
Staten Island Museum — Vulnerable Landscapes press release and coverage
Waterfront Alliance — "Compelling Art Exhibition Illustrates Flood Risk at the BlueLine" (Tomorrow's Sea premiere)
Chance Ecologies era, ~20 press hits including Untapped Cities (five articles), Curbed NY, Gothamist, Urban Omnibus, Art F City, Queens Courier, Miami Rail, and Streetnotes
Education
M.F.A., Literary Arts (Writing Digital Media), Brown University, 2012
M.A., Computer Music and Multimedia Composition, Brown University, 2002
B.A., Visual Art with Honors, Brown University, 2000