Code:ART Festival
Code:ART 2025
The City is planning its fourth interactive Code:ART media art festival on October 16-18, 2025. This three-evening event reimagines Palo Alto’s plazas, alleys, and public spaces through interactive light, sound, and motion. The Code:ART Festival explores the intersection between art and technology, reflecting the creative and innovative communities in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, and the Bay Area.
Contact the Palo Alto Public Art Program with any questions. Sign up to our monthly newsletter, and stay connected on Instagram and Facebook. If you are interested in sponsoring or supporting Code:ART 2025, contact Public Art Program Director Elise DeMarzo by email.
Request for Qualifications - Code:ART Festival 2025
The City of Palo Alto Public Art Program will launch its fourth interactive media event, Code:ART, a three-evening festival which re-imagines Palo Alto’s plazas, alleys, and public spaces through interactive light, sound, and motion. The artworks should invite play and participation, engaging visitors in an event that outwardly reflects the creative community and culture that thrives here. All installations should have a nighttime presence and interactive component. The festival, held on October 16, 17, and 18, 2025, 5-10 p.m., will feature a large-scale immersive projection artwork on the front facade of City Hall, a major interactive media artwork at Lytton Plaza, and four additional interactive installations, so-called Urban Interventions, that will activate or reimagine downtown storefronts, alleys, parking lots or blank walls in new and inventive ways.
EVENT DATES: October 16-18, 2025, 5 – 10 p.m.
ARTIST ELIGIBILITY: The artist calls are open to individuals and groups of artists, designers, inventors, and innovative thinkers over the age of 18 residing in the United States, as well as international citizens with a US work permit. If applying as a team, at least one member must be over the age of 18 to enter into a legal contract with the City of Palo Alto. Artists may apply for both the Lytton Plaza Artwork and Urban Interventions calls but may be awarded only one commission. Applicants residing in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties are particularly encouraged to apply. Artists who have participated in Code:ART twice before are not eligible to re-apply.
View Full Call(PDF, 384KB)
ARTIST OPPORTUNITY: LYTTON PLAZA INSTALLATION
The City of Palo Alto Public Art Program seeks artists working at the intersection of art and technology to create an exciting interactive media artwork for temporary installation, anchoring the Code:ART festival October 16, 17, and 18, 2025. As a highlight of the festival, the Artwork will have a strong evening presence, spark curiosity, and invite interaction and play. Artists interested in being considered for this opportunity and intending to create an original site-specific artwork are invited to submit their qualifications with samples of previous work and a statement of the intended artwork. Artists may also propose an existing artwork that would be appropriate to the theme and format of Code:ART and may be customized to fit the exhibition site in Palo Alto. The Artwork will be displayed at a key downtown site, Lytton Plaza, demonstrate exceptional quality and innovative uses of technology, and offer meaningful public engagement and social exchange.
BUDGET: $20,000 to design, realize, and install the Artwork during the 3-evening festival. The art budget is inclusive of transportation, hotel and travel expenses, installation, and removal costs.
APPLY HERE
ARTIST OPPORTUNITY: URBAN INTERVENTIONS
The City of Palo Alto’s Public Art Program is inviting media artists, designers, inventors, and innovative thinkers creating work at the intersection of art and emerging technologies to submit their qualifications for Urban Interventions. Artists interested in being considered for this opportunity and intending to create an original interactive media artwork are invited to submit their qualifications with samples of previously completed work and a statement for the intended artwork. Artists may also propose an existing artwork that would be appropriate to the theme and format of Code:ART and may be customized if needed to fit the exhibition site in Palo Alto. Four Urban Interventions will be selected to receive up to $8,000 stipends and technical assistance for installation in various locations downtown Palo Alto for the duration of 72 hours. These interactive projects placed in the downtown corridor re-imagine Palo Alto’s plazas, alleys, and public spaces through interactive light, sound, and motion.
BUDGET: $8,000 to design, realize and install the Urban Intervention during the 3-evening festival. The project budget is inclusive of transportation, travel and lodging, placement and removal costs, and insurance.
APPLY HERE
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Due by Friday, October 18, 2024 at 11:59 PM (PST). All applications must be submitted online via SlideRoom (http://CPApublicart.slideroom.com), an online application system for artist calls. There is no application fee for artists to submit their application using SlideRoom. Applications that are submitted via email, post, or in person won’t be considered. Please read the full call before applying.
VIEW FULL CALL(PDF, 384KB)
Request for Proposals (RFP): Large-Scale Mapping Production Services for Code:ART Festival 2025
As a new feature for Code:ART 2025, Palo Alto Public Art would like to feature an immersive largescale projection on the front façade of City Hall, located at 250 Hamilton Avenue, that will span most of the Hamilton facing façade. The projections will be unveiled the first night of the Code:ART festival on October 16th and be featured beyond the timeline of the festival to run nightly through October 25th.
The City of Palo Alto Public Art Program is seeking proposals from qualified projection mapping production companies to bring large scale 3D projection mapping projects to Palo Alto’s City Hall and provide original content by at least three artists to run nightly between October 16 – 25, 2025. This request for proposals is to solicit qualifications and budget estimates from various Consultants, with the intent to sign a master agreement with the vendor that most fits the Program’s needs. The City plans to select one Consultant to provide projection mapping, projection, and content generation services. San Francisco Bay Area based companies are particularly encouraged to apply.
View Full RFP(PDF, 741KB)
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS: Due by Monday, September 30, 2024 at 5:00 PM (PST). All proposals must be submitted electronically via email or Dropbox (share a link to your Dropbox folder by emailing Elise.DeMarzo@CityofPaloAlto.org). Please clearly title your application by first and last name and submission date. All proposals must include information in accordance with the submission instructions provided in the Request for Proposals (RFP).
Code:ART 2023
Video credit: Lance Huntress
The City hosted its third interactive media art festival, Code:ART on October 12-14, 2023. The festival featured a major interactive media artwork anchoring the festival and six Urban Interventions activating or reimagining downtown storefronts, alleys, parking lots or blank walls in new and inventive ways, inviting visitors to participation and play. Over 13,000 visitors from the Bay Area and beyond visited the festival. Many visitors described how much they enjoyed the event and how it activated downtown Palo Alto in an interesting and engaging way. Attendees also expressed that Code:ART brought people together and created a sense of community.
Major Artwork
Questions for the Curious Orchard by artist Nate Mohler was a site-specific immersive interactive artwork that visually responded to visitors in a playful and engaging way. Taking inspiration from complex networks and energy exchange between living beings occurring in the natural world, such as the contagiousness of laughter or tree roots communicating in a forest, the installation invited visitors to gift something to it, such as their heartbeat or best dance moves, that in turn fed energy into the biome and ripple throughout the installation.
Nate Mohler is a Los Angeles-based emerging media artist, who works with digital technology as a paint brush to build avant-garde experiences. A 2019 UCLA graduate with a B.A. in Design | Media Arts, Mohler is intrigued with the fusion of conceptual art and technology to support social activism with unconventional space and sound. His work raises questions about art + technology through digital mediums such as projection mapping, immersive installations, sculpture and video art. Mohler is interested in the way digital tools such as code and machine intelligence allow for new explorations of imagination and the development of new aesthetics. Striving to fuse more human finesse and elements of nostalgia into highly digital based video work, Mohler often introduces personal memories in his work.
Installation Site: King Plaza, 250 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, CA.
Questions for the Curious Orchard by artist Nate Mohler. Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
Urban Interventions
Six Urban Intervention installations by Bay Area and international artists were installed in downtown Palo Alto, reimagining downtown storefronts, alleys, parking lots or blank walls in new and inventive ways. These interventions included dynamic projections, immersive installations, responsive sound, light, and game-based experiences.
INTERACTIVE FLOW FIELDS by Steven Wallace & Robert Fleming
Interactive Flow Fields was a multi display video installation, consisting of a computer running TouchDesigner, displaying a webcam reactive field flow algorithm. Flow fields are a branch of physics used to predict how objects flow through a defined medium. These underlying principles help us to understand movement: from the very large, like how gravity and electromagnetism influence the paths of celestial bodies; all the way to the very small, like how pharmaceuticals use nano-particles to deliver drugs through our bloodstream.
The artist's idea behind Interactive Flow Fields was to introduce these concepts to the public through an dynamic visual installation. The viewer saw a sample flow field of particles generated with code on a LED panel wall. Their movement was tracked by a 3D camera altering the direction of the particle flows dynamically. The artist aimed to show that science and code in general can be fun, also highlighting flow fields in particular, as an easy introduction to generative art.
Steven Christopher Wallace is an artist living in San Francisco. His work has been seen in galleries and exhibitions throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as well as in the metaverse as a featured artist during Decentraland Art Week, on the Monograma x SuperRare Space, in the Rug Radio x Superchief Gallery in New York City, in the Idolwild Gallery in Los Angeles, at the /’fu:bar/ expo in Croatia, and as a featured artist at NFT NYC.
Installation Site: 581 Ramona St, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
INTERSECTION by Ruokan He
Intersection was an immersive light- and sound-based multimedia art installation where an underwater forest moved into a downtown alley. The visitor was invited into a multisensory dream world where hidden messages from the sea were uncovered. Intersection provided a place to pause, reflect, and feel, inviting the visitor on a journey of discovery between the artificial and natural, self and community, past and future.
Ruokan He is a Palo Alto based creator, designer and musician. She weaves music, future technology and mixed-reality into immersive experiences that blurs the boundaries of reality and imagination, organic and digital, harmony and dissonance. Ruokan He draws inspiration from the ocean and the environment, in creating experience about connections. She was an AI artist at the 2022 Stochastic lab, has received a Telly Award, showcased her games at the Indiecade Festival, collaborated with dancers in interactive shows, and performed at various venues since 2015.
Collaborators on Intersection: Rehmi Post, Selene Mota, Karl Gumerlock, and James Young.
Installation site: 536 Emerson St, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
HELIX SEATS by Pneuhaus
Helix Seats was an innovative art installation featuring two inflatable helices designed for interactive engagement. As LEDs came to life within the helices, Helix Seats illuminated the space with a mesmerizing dance of colors between the forms, evoking a sense of wonder and unity. Beyond their function as seating, the Helix Seats doubled as eye-catching sculptural centerpieces and giant sensory play objects. The installation's dynamic nature allowed it to enliven and unify, while the LED lighting within the helices added a touch of visual appeal, creating an engaging and inspiring atmosphere for all visitors.
Pneuhaus is an art and design studio that specializes in exuberant transformations of public space. Their immersive sculptures and environments guide visitors into the universe of their senses and the joys of shared experience. Inspired by physics, biology, and craft, Pneuhaus studio’s work incorporates the lessons of nature in both form and function.
Installation site: Lytton Plaza, 200 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
RIPPLE by Jeffrey Yip
Ripple invited the public to experience sound in a new interactive and playful way offering an audiovisual performance. Inspired by the natural world and activated through motion, the multisensory installation investigated how ripples affect each other to create dynamic patterns similarly to how societal systems we put in place create complexity. Ripple explored the visible effects of sound and vibration, replicating a form of sound therapy known as Vibroacoustic Therapy (VAT), which is known to alleviate stress.
Jeffrey Yip is an Oakland-based interdisciplinary artist producing installations and performances that emphasize technology as a tool of creation. Interested in uniting the senses as an approach to building experiences, he combines light and sound in physical and virtual spaces. His work explores technology imagined as a means to facilitate healing as a form of radical justice, and often works collaboratively to create sustainable communities. In 2015, Jeffrey co-founded Macro Waves, a studio of designers and artists of color who specialize in producing immersive experience through conceptual art, new media, and design.
Installation site: 555 Ramona St, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
RIVER OF SHADOWS by Cory Barr, Paul Mans & Matt Sonic
River of Shadows included a dynamic interactive digital mural, projected on a mapped surface of a removable screen. As visitors approached, they saw their shadows in the colored light. These shadows were mirrored above, at the head of the "river" joining the silhouettes of other colors of previous visitors. Their saved shadows created the visual river, and the current visitor's color and shadow was added to the river as well.
River of Shadows takes its name from Rebecca Solnit's account and critical interpretation of Eadweard Muybridge's work "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West," in particular the well-known investigations into motion done at Leland Stanford's nearby ranch. The installation revisited the concepts she articulates of fluid time, stopped time, instantaneous time, and reconstructed time, and attempted to muddy any boundary between art and technology, as Muybridge did. The visual language of the installation incorporated artifacts from the computer-vision algorithms that drive it and much of the world today.
Cory Barr’s multidisciplinary work challenges the objectivity of human perception, our interpersonal interactions, and the nature of creativity. His pieces extend the traditions of Light and Space art, Participatory art, and Conceptual process art. Contemporary and emerging technologies are used to push our technological inheritance into areas not strictly driven by commercial or government goals. Mediums include programmable lights, cameras, prints, and custom computer software.
Paul Mans is an interactive artist and engineer whose light based work explores intent and perception through the lens of movement. He uses cameras, projectors, and custom computer software to mix reality, and invites participants to be collaborators.
Installation site: 339 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
BUREAU OF CLOUD MANAGEMENT by Tong Wu & Yuguang Zhang
Bureau of Cloud Management (BCM) is an imaginary government bureau that monitors clouds entering its jurisdiction. This interactive simulated environment project was created as part of the artist duo's art research on the emerging co-creating patterns between human and AI generating models, focusing on how human agency is affected during co-creating. It’s an artistic intervention that invites machine agency and human agency to collaboratively recreate the experience of observing clouds - one of the most imaginative human activities, which draws the initial picture of the dreams of every one of us and associates ourselves with our primitive thinking of and connection with the broader world. The duo imagined the BCM, a speculative government agency that manages the clouds passing by its jurisdictive sky area. The artists invited the public to role-play the staff cloud observers, using voice input to share their observations of clouds through visiting a web portal on their mobile devices. An ML-based synthesis pipeline transform these audio observations into simulated 3D clouds and showcased the public’s collective imagination as an immersive media installation.
Tong Wu is a creative technologist and multimedia artist raised on the Internet. She now co-exists with her digital doubles in New York and the Chrome browser. Wu's art research focuses on cyberculture, the digital system, and how "individuals" form relationships with their over-populated avatars in the era of digital. She uses various media, such as 3D visuals, machine-learning models, and web-based experience to construct a speculative world of digital doubles and present the fluid yet dystopian nature of the "individual".
Wu graduated from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University and the photojournalism program at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has exhibited her work internationally, including INDEX Biennale 2022 in Braga, Portugal, Koganechō Art Management Center in Yokohama, Japan, CURRENTS New Media Festival in New Mexico, U.S., International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) DocLab Session in Amsterdam, Netherlands, CultureHub & La Mama experimental theater club in New York, U.S., SandBox Immersive Festival Acceleration Program in Hangzhou, China.
Yuguang (YG) Zhang is a New York-based new media / AI artist, a lead machine learning technologist at De-Yan, and a member of NUUM Collective. His current practice, which incorporates interactive media, installation, and live performance, focuses on the reciprocal relationship between human and technology, the connections people make with tangible and intangible AI, and the cultural, societal & ethical shifts that come along.
Zhang's works have been showcased at NeurIPS, aiartonline, ML x Art, Neural, the NYC Media Lab Summit, New Inc., CultureHub, La MaMa, Movement Research, Battery Dance Festival, The Center at West Park, Currents New Media Festival, and Processing Foundation community conference in New York, NY, Brown Arts Initiative in Providence, RI, Cycling ‘74 Expo in North Adams, MA, Maxxi - The National Museum of XXI Century Arts at Rome, Fu:bar art festival at Zagreb, Beijing Times Arts Museum, B·O·N·D International Virtual Live Performance Festival in Shanghai and more.
Installation site: 285 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, CA.
Image credit: Benny Villarreal.
Community Partnerships
The Public Art Program teamed up with local downtown businesses for an extended Code:ART Festival program schedule:
Pamela Walsh Gallery, 540 Ramona Street, was pleased to participate in this year’s Code: ART Festival with a selection of works by interdisciplinary artist Maja Planinac. They exhibited a new, digital work alongside a small collection of photographs from her recent series called “Away” with a meet-the-artist event.
Bell’s Books, 536 Emerson Street, had Margo Davis’ s exquisite portraits of Saul Bellow, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Toni Morrison, Ursula Le Guin, The Dalai Lama, and more, on display throughout the entire Code:ART Festival. They hosted a meet-and-greet with Margo Davis.
Qualia Contemporary Art, 328 University Avenue. Local artist Clive McCarthy demonstrated and spoke to how he utilizes small, custom-built computer systems to produce painting-like images rendered on flat screens.
Pho Ha Noi,185 University Avenue, had a special drink list for Code:ART festival-goers.
Palo Alto Libraries curated a special Code:ART themed book list with all publications available to readers at Palo Alto Libraries and online.