Exhibition · Currents x Relay
Ambient Intelligence
Ambient Intelligence was a month-long, open-call exhibition at Relay Santa Fe exploring networked, responsive, and distributed interactive art systems. Seventeen artists presented works that communicated with one another through a shared technical platform - systems that sense, respond, and adapt to human presence, environmental conditions, and the behavior of other systems. Each work operated autonomously while contributing to a larger networked whole that revealed shared state, collective behavior, and emergent patterns over the run of the show.At the center of the exhibition was Maestra, the shared interactive platform conceived and built by resident technologist Jordan Snyder. Maestra connects creative tools like TouchDesigner, Max/MSP, Unity, and microcontroller-based hardware into a shared creative nervous system - devices publish and subscribe to events through a central message bus, with gateways for OSC, WebSocket, MQTT, and DMX/Art-Net - so works spanning physical and digital media can sense and respond to one another in real time. Running on the gallery's local network, Maestra let each work broadcast its state and react to the collective behavior of the show.Jordan was also a major technical collaborator throughout the exhibition, helping assemble and integrate the starter hardware kits and offering a tremendous amount of hands-on assistance and mentorship to the participating artists as they brought their works onto the network.I produced the exhibition with Hannah Kramm and Matthew Contos, presented in partnership with Currents New Media. Relay sourced and provided the starter hardware kits that lowered the barrier to participation, and ran artist-led workshops, an opening reception, and performance activations throughout the month. Made possible with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.YEAR2026ARTISTS17ROLEExhibit producer · Technical productionPLATFORMMaestra, by Jordan SnyderPARTNERSCurrents New Media · National Endowment for the Arts
ARTISTSJulian Addams-Wolf · Jerome Morrison · Morgan Barnard · Krista Faist · Sasha Faust · Rob Gulotta · B. Greiner · Eric Heep · Mike Root · Lila Steffan · Matt Rybecky · Owen Schwab · Zuyva Sevilla · Jordan Timber Snyder · Sarah Turner · Thomas Vause · Gabe Weisbuch
RESIDENT TECHNOLOGISTJordan Timber Snyder
EXHIBIT PRODUCERSAaron Geiser · Hannah Kramm · Matthew Contos
VIDEO PRODUCTIONPassion House Media
