Art Forum with Ari Melenciano

Art Forum is a speaker series featuring artists, designers, art historians, curators, and art critics from around the world presenting their work and ideas in an open forum, hosted by the Department of Art & Design. Artist and curator Ari Melenciano will discuss her latest work in The Age of Black Metal by Afrotectopia.

September 9 – December 14, 2025

Segal Gallery and Kasser Lobby

Black Metal originated as a kitchen table art book that pushes the boundaries of space travel, science fiction, speculative design, Black culture, art, technology, and spirituality. The book emerged from an Afrotectopia-led incubator, in collaboration with MIT Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative and NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. The project features contributions from artists Jordan Caldwell, Kordae Jatafa Henry, Jeremy Kamal, and Ari Melenciano.

The Age of Black Metal builds upon the foundational ideas of the book and translates the text into a fully immersive experience for visitors to explore each conceptual chapter–from metaphysical training manuals, botanical consciousness, and self-alignment protocols–through participatory installations. The exhibition is set centuries in the future, imagining a timeline where society has been profoundly shaped by the principles of Black Metal. Ultimately, visitors will not only bear witness to the societal effects of Black Metal, but also leave transformed in some way.

The Age of Black Metal invites all to imagine the futures that Black culture can build, if given space to expand without limit.

Ari Melenciano has cultivated an expansive practice within the arts, technology, design, culture, and pedagogy. Her natural ability to combine many disciplines reveals their interconnectedness and reimagines their conventions for new possibilities. Her art practice ranges from using AI through both critical and imaginative lenses, to sound design using botanical data. Her work has been exhibited around the world from Dubai's Museum of the Future to the Studio Museum in Harlem. She's a frequent international public speaker, and occasionally designs and teaches courses at New York University, Hunter College, Parsons, and the Pratt Institute.

Afrotectopia is a social institution cultivating boundless innovation at the nexus of art, design, technology, and culture. Founded in 2018 by NYU ITP graduate student Ari Melenciano, Afrotectopia began as a highly cross-disciplinary conference cultivating a vibrant community of industry and cultural pioneers. For years, Afrotectopia hosted a variety of programming that bridged connections between emerging technologies, Black culture, and racial equity.

Host or Publisher Montclair State University Galleries