MAD PINNEY
1996 -
1996 -
Mad is currently the Programs Manager at POWRPLNT, an organization operating on the notion that access to technology is a right, not a privilege. There she facilitates community organizing, artist workshops, and leveraging the power of collective networks to build spaces of care and creativity. Mad also works as the Community Manager at Artwrld, an NFT studio and marketplace producing work with the world’s most visionary artists.
Mad has also worked with NYC/LA art spaces Eyebeam, SIGNAL, Amos Eno, and TRANSFER Gallery.
Mad holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Integrated Media with a minor in Journalism and Art History from Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication. She also received a Certificate in Curatorial Practice at Zurich University for the Arts.
Mad currently lives in Florence with her dog, Teacher.
WORK
Artwrld
Community ManagerNov 2021 - Present
- Research field of Art NFTs, create content that allows inroads from the traditional art world and the crypto community.
- Develop community strategy that centers criticism, context, and conversation within community. Define and implement social media strategy across multiple platforms, including Twitter, Instagram and Discord.
- Calendarize and create social content that inspires participation.
- Collaborate on editorial content including interviews and discussions that help position organization as a thought leader in the space.
- Curate programs for NFT fluency and literacy, exploration of contemporary art practice, and information about the creative possibility of on-chain art projects.
Artwrld commissions and presents digital art projects by the world’s most visionary artists.
We are an artist-driven organization that believes in building an art world worth inhabiting. We work collaboratively with artists to design and build projects that engage audiences and explore the emerging possibilities of blockchain technology for creative practice. We support artists throughout the process of making new work—from conceptualization to production and presentation—while fostering critical conversations about the issues driving digital art and culture. We produce art with artists that speaks to everyday people in provocative, challenging, inspiring ways. We aim to help artists advance their work and ideas into this new terrain, generating projects that are thoughtful, bold, complex, and original.
We are an artist-driven organization that believes in building an art world worth inhabiting. We work collaboratively with artists to design and build projects that engage audiences and explore the emerging possibilities of blockchain technology for creative practice. We support artists throughout the process of making new work—from conceptualization to production and presentation—while fostering critical conversations about the issues driving digital art and culture. We produce art with artists that speaks to everyday people in provocative, challenging, inspiring ways. We aim to help artists advance their work and ideas into this new terrain, generating projects that are thoughtful, bold, complex, and original.
POWRPLNT
PROGRAMMING MANAGER, ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERAug 2018 - Present
- Curate organization’s public programs and open calls for teaching artists
- Developed annual week-long art & tech summer school in partnership with mission-aligned organizations across the country
- Raised thousands from individual donors through social media and personal outreach
- Inaugurated into the Ford Foundation’s New Media Leadership Cohort
- Coordinate and maintain corporate and community-based partnerships
- Increased average event attendance rate by 500% through renewed marketing strategy and curatorial initiatives
POWRPLNT is a space where the digital arts community engages the next generation of creators. It functions as gallery space, internet lounge and an environment where people from all backgrounds may learn the skills necessary to express themselves creatively in today’s networks. We aim to make the digital world accessible, personal and more human.
POWRPLNT organizes digital art educational workshops and activations to engage youth and artists in interest driven learning focused on democratizing and supporting diverse leaders within arts and technology.
Selected Contribution + Press
︎︎︎ Teaching Artist Open Call: Abolitionist tools for digital wellness
︎︎︎ POWER UP 2020
︎︎︎ POWER UP 2021: Healing & Transformation Through Technology
︎︎︎ POWRPLNT, the mutual aid space bridging the digital divide, Document Journal
POWRPLNT organizes digital art educational workshops and activations to engage youth and artists in interest driven learning focused on democratizing and supporting diverse leaders within arts and technology.
Selected Contribution + Press
︎︎︎ Teaching Artist Open Call: Abolitionist tools for digital wellness
︎︎︎ POWER UP 2020
︎︎︎ POWER UP 2021: Healing & Transformation Through Technology
︎︎︎ POWRPLNT, the mutual aid space bridging the digital divide, Document Journal
Eyebeam
DIGITAL COMMUNITY, ENGAGEMENT, MARKETING LEADFeb 2018 - Nov 2021
- Led the organization through a major rebranding, project managed the implementation of a renewed visual identity provided by Mother Design that included web, social, and physical assets
- Increased organization’s Instagram following by 300% by implementing strategy based on market research and audience analysis
- Transitioned organization’s digital platforms to go beyond accessibility standards, leading to Eyebeam being recognized by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Disabilities Sapolin Award
- Supported the development of a new membership-based model of engagement for stakeholders, offering the public deeper access to artists, mobilizing passive followers through calls to action, and building a pipeline for future donors
- Project-managed design, development, and marketing of Eyebeam’s first-ever online festival, which amassed over 5,000 audience members on a platform created by Berlin-based developers, Trust
- Designed physical and digital assets in addition to hiring on contract designers and acting as Creative Lead
Technology’s effect on our future is always changing and difficult to understand. Through exploratory process and emotionally compelling output, Eyebeam believes that artists can help us visualize and realize a more humane future.
Eyebeam provides both space and support for a community of diverse, justice-driven artists. Our annual fellowship program, highly engaged community of alumni, advanced tools and resources, shows, and events help our artists bring their work to life and out into the world.
Eyebeam enables people to think creatively and critically about technology’s effect on society, with the mission of revealing new paths toward a better future for all.
Eyebeam provides both space and support for a community of diverse, justice-driven artists. Our annual fellowship program, highly engaged community of alumni, advanced tools and resources, shows, and events help our artists bring their work to life and out into the world.
Eyebeam enables people to think creatively and critically about technology’s effect on society, with the mission of revealing new paths toward a better future for all.
Selected Contribution
︎︎︎ eyebeam.org
︎︎︎ From the Rupture
︎︎︎ The Fold
︎︎︎ @eyebeamnyc
On Being Apart Together at Culture Hub
CultureHub hosts a conversation on emergent distributed strategies for community engagement. This virtual event gathers a panel of arts leaders and community organizers based in Los Angeles and New York working with art, art and tech, and community initiatives. The conversation will center around how collectives have been devising new grassroots engagement strategies during this time of remote connection, in conjunction with innovative technology or by activating other means of interaction. The panelists will also discuss how they envision sustaining and/or adapting their approaches in the long term.
Panelists include: Alice Yuan Zhang & Sara Suárez (virtual care lab), Mad Pinney (POWRPLNT), Taehee Whang (Hyperlink Press), Tamilla Woodard (Working Theater, PopUP Theatrics), Ella Hillström & Christoffer Horlitz (Anti-Customs Enforcement), Yo-Yo Lin, and Jasmine Hayden.
Code, Decolonized at The New School
code, decolonized is a teaching practicum that investigates the ever-shifting roles of software and explore new forms of code pedagogy through queer, Black, abolitionist, and intersectional feminist consciousness. We will research, experiment, and practice new ways of learning and teaching programming languages for the web through perspectives that are traditionally overlooked and under-recognized in the technical classroom. Following bell hook’s vision of “education as the practice of freedom”, this course equips future-educators with tools to reframe their understanding of traditional computer science education and craft socially-engaged course materials. By the end of the course, we will culminate in an array of syllabi, collaborative tools, assignments, in-class exercises and present them through an end of the semester symposium students will facilitate and attend outside of class time. This COLLAB studio partners with the Processing Foundation and POWRPLNT and is well suited for students who are invested in pursuing teaching careers after graduation, as well as those looking to deepen their understanding of code and community work.
CultureHub hosts a conversation on emergent distributed strategies for community engagement. This virtual event gathers a panel of arts leaders and community organizers based in Los Angeles and New York working with art, art and tech, and community initiatives. The conversation will center around how collectives have been devising new grassroots engagement strategies during this time of remote connection, in conjunction with innovative technology or by activating other means of interaction. The panelists will also discuss how they envision sustaining and/or adapting their approaches in the long term.
Panelists include: Alice Yuan Zhang & Sara Suárez (virtual care lab), Mad Pinney (POWRPLNT), Taehee Whang (Hyperlink Press), Tamilla Woodard (Working Theater, PopUP Theatrics), Ella Hillström & Christoffer Horlitz (Anti-Customs Enforcement), Yo-Yo Lin, and Jasmine Hayden.
Code, Decolonized at The New School
code, decolonized is a teaching practicum that investigates the ever-shifting roles of software and explore new forms of code pedagogy through queer, Black, abolitionist, and intersectional feminist consciousness. We will research, experiment, and practice new ways of learning and teaching programming languages for the web through perspectives that are traditionally overlooked and under-recognized in the technical classroom. Following bell hook’s vision of “education as the practice of freedom”, this course equips future-educators with tools to reframe their understanding of traditional computer science education and craft socially-engaged course materials. By the end of the course, we will culminate in an array of syllabi, collaborative tools, assignments, in-class exercises and present them through an end of the semester symposium students will facilitate and attend outside of class time. This COLLAB studio partners with the Processing Foundation and POWRPLNT and is well suited for students who are invested in pursuing teaching careers after graduation, as well as those looking to deepen their understanding of code and community work.
EDITORIAL
Apeing To The Right
Outland Art
Could the speed of the NFT market—which often comes at the expense of reflection on artistic intent and sociopolitical context—allow fascist aesthetics to circulate unencumbered in a time when far-right
extremism is on the rise globally? The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) have been accused with propagating racist imagery and neo-Nazi references by artist Ryder Ripps and others. Yet this has barely impacted the high value of the NFT series. There is a long history of mainstreaming fascism through art, memes, and merchandise, from Italian Futurism to Pepe the Frog and Proud Boy-associated apparel. The innocuous presentation of the BAYC brand means that any connections to neo-Nazi imagery can be dismissed as conspiratorial speculation. But no matter what th
e intent of the creators may be, the success of BAYC raises the question of why pop culture is still profiting from racist symbols, and offers an entry point for identifying how alt-right extremists are making gains in the NFT field.
Sinjun Strom: Hot Mamma
Refigural
How do I start here? When I was a kid, I used to collect old photographs and I thought they were beautiful.
I didn’t understand how they were made or why there were so many kinds that looked so different. They all had this character to them, partially because of age, but I could tell the processes were different. I just didn’t understand it because I didn’t know anything about photography. I was in 7th grade. I have an uncle, a photographer, he keeps it for himself. He’s like a super tech nerd. I asked him why these photos look this way. What are these processes? He started explaining it to me. Photography was never interesting to me because it seemed so separated from yourself. It’s not very hands-on. But then when he started explaining these things to me, photography could be more exciting because I could be more connected to my work.
Outland Art
Could the speed of the NFT market—which often comes at the expense of reflection on artistic intent and sociopolitical context—allow fascist aesthetics to circulate unencumbered in a time when far-right
extremism is on the rise globally? The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) have been accused with propagating racist imagery and neo-Nazi references by artist Ryder Ripps and others. Yet this has barely impacted the high value of the NFT series. There is a long history of mainstreaming fascism through art, memes, and merchandise, from Italian Futurism to Pepe the Frog and Proud Boy-associated apparel. The innocuous presentation of the BAYC brand means that any connections to neo-Nazi imagery can be dismissed as conspiratorial speculation. But no matter what th
e intent of the creators may be, the success of BAYC raises the question of why pop culture is still profiting from racist symbols, and offers an entry point for identifying how alt-right extremists are making gains in the NFT field.
Sinjun Strom: Hot Mamma
Refigural
How do I start here? When I was a kid, I used to collect old photographs and I thought they were beautiful.
I didn’t understand how they were made or why there were so many kinds that looked so different. They all had this character to them, partially because of age, but I could tell the processes were different. I just didn’t understand it because I didn’t know anything about photography. I was in 7th grade. I have an uncle, a photographer, he keeps it for himself. He’s like a super tech nerd. I asked him why these photos look this way. What are these processes? He started explaining it to me. Photography was never interesting to me because it seemed so separated from yourself. It’s not very hands-on. But then when he started explaining these things to me, photography could be more exciting because I could be more connected to my work.