Artist, Engineer, Organizer
Ar Ducao (they / zey pronouns) is a new media artist, engineer, organizer and educator. Ducao’s 3D animations and visualizations have been shown in venues and festivals around the world, including the Margaret Mead Documentary Festival (US), Reel Sisters of the Diaspora (US), Le Musee di-visioniste (Germany), Salon International de Arte Digital (Cuba), and Lola Screen Children’s Festival (Kenya). Their media work has been honored with the SXSW Community Service Award, the MIT Public Service Center Fellowship, the Best App Ever Award, the Seoul Cycle Design Prize, and the Brave Destiny Film Festival’s Grand Prize, among others. Ducao began their animation career in science visualization for the American Museum of Natural History, and their innovation work has been profiled by the New York Times, MSNBC, WIRED, Discovery Channel, NPR, and many more. They are a past winner of the Science Channel reality show “All American Makers.” Their current long-term media project is an award-winning animated adult sci-fi series called “The Great Tit is a Bird” (https:// thegreattitisabird.com), which follows Black and Brown feminine and trans- feminine people around the world, the losses they survive, and the ways they shape our high-tech era even as they are pushed to the margins.
Ducao is also a co-founder and principal at Multimer, a bio-spatial analytics spinoff from MIT Media Lab and National Science Foundation SBIR award winner. A federally-certified EDWOSB (economically disadvantaged woman-owned small business) with patented technology (USPTO 11666217), Multimer has worked with marginalized communities in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. Ducao is a research affiliate and instructor at MIT, and an adjunct professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, NYU School of Engineering, and the NYU Prison Education Program. Their writing and design has been published in journals including Bright Lights Film Journal, the Journal of Intelligent Buildings, and International Journal of Community Well-being; and books including Data, Architecture, and the Experience of Place and Instrumental Intimacy: EEG Wearables and Neuroscientific Control. Ar Ducao is a member of the Fulbright Specialist Program, recent co-chair of the UAW 9A Human & Civil Rights Council, Deputy Board Chair for InuaKike.org, community advisory board member for Callen-Lorde Health Center, advocacy and research ambassador for the National Eczema Association, and technical advisor for the Black maternal health startup Birth By Us.