Tomorrowland Projects Foundation Announces Artist and Biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg as 2024 Award Recipient

Invite-only award for projects that expand awareness of issues affecting society-at-large administered by New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA).

New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is pleased to announce that artist and biohacker Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg was selected as the 2024 recipient of the Tomorrowland Projects Foundation Award.

Dewey-Hagborg was recognized with a $9,000 cash grant through the Tomorrowland Projects Foundation, which supports artistic, multidisciplinary team collaborations and artist-driven projects that expand awareness of issues affecting society-at-large, and considers award-planning funds to develop new technology, research, and installation art.

Dewey-Hagborg was selected by Tomorrowland Projects Foundation’s Board of Directors for the project “No Seconds.”

“No Seconds”  is an immersive video and live performance installation sharing the experience of Texas death row inmate Amos Wells and the genetic behavioral profiling which forms part of the backstory to his sentencing.

It is based on months of phone calls between Dewey-Hagborg and Wells. The cell in which Wells is kept, a space visible only to prisoners and guards, has been reconstructed with 3D modeling and it becomes gradually filled with detail as you hear Wells describe it, in a way that captures the feeling of being there as well as the architecture of incarceration.

As the piece goes on, Dewey-Hagborg explores the strange and disturbing genetic background of his death sentence—that his defense raised the argument he would be genetically predisposed to violence based on an analysis of the MAOA gene.

On receiving the award, Dewey-Hagborg said “This is a very exciting opportunity! Receiving this grant gives me the leverage I need to push this project forward. In and of itself it will make a good amount of production possible and I hope it will help me to further fundraise.”

Tomorrowland Projects Foundation Board of Directors comprises Nina Yankowitz, President, Artist, New Media, Immersive Art Installations; David Becker, Vice President, Film Director, Documentary Producer, Fundraiser; Ian A. Holden, Vice President, Film Editor, Musician, Dancer, Digital Artist; Barry Holden, Treasurer, Architect, and Installation Designer; Ellen K. Levy, PhD, Secretary, Art/Science Media, ‘Art and Complex Systems,’ Writer Coeditor with Barbara Larson Science and the Arts since 1750 book series (Routledge Press); and Jon Nazareth, Assistant Secretary, Artist, Painter, Digital Video productions.

Nina Yankowitz, Tomorrowland Projects Foundation Board President, said: “Tomorrowland Projects Foundation’s board of directors unanimously approved to help fund Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s No Seconds. It was an easy decision for us as this groundbreaking artwork closely aligns with our interest in supporting work at the intersection of art, science, politics, and new technologies.”

Michael Royce, NYFA CEO, said: “Dewey-Hagborg has said that artistic practice ‘is like playing detective in a novel that is always changing’ and that ‘the work is a process of constant discovery.’ We’re thrilled that Tomorrowland Projects Foundation has recognized Dewey-Hagborg with this award; her curiosity to investigate complex issues through an art, science, and technology lens is on the cutting edge of what it means to be an artist today.”

About Heather Dewey-Hagborg:
Dr. Heather Dewey-Hagborg is a New York-based artist and biohacker who is interested in art as research and technological critique. Her controversial biopolitical art practice includes the project Stranger Visions, in which she created portrait sculptures from analyses of genetic material (hair, cigarette butts, chewed up gum) collected in public places.

Dewey-Hagborg has shown work internationally at events and venues including the World Economic Forum, the Daejeon Biennale, the Guangzhou Triennial, and the Shenzhen Urbanism and Architecture Biennale, Transmediale, the Walker Center for Contemporary Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and PS1 MoMA. Her work is held in public collections of the Centre Pompidou, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and SFMoMA, among others, and has been widely discussed in the media, from The New York Times and the BBC to Artforum and Wired.

Dewey-Hagborg has a PhD in Electronic Arts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is an Artist-in-Residence at the Exploratorium, and is an affiliate of Data & Society. She is a founding board member of Digital DNA, a European Research Council funded project investigating the changing relationships between digital technologies, DNA, and evidence.

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