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For 17 years running, Currents New Media has brought cutting-edge art and technology projects to Santa Fe. Currents 2026 will feature 53 works from around the world, including multimedia performances, virtual reality experiences, robotics, digital sculptures, experimental animations and wearable art. The festival begins Friday, June 12, and runs through Sunday, June 21, at El Museo Cultural in Santa Fe鈥檚 Railyard Arts District.

鈥淥ne of the things that鈥檚 new this year is that we鈥檙e also at seven other locations around town,鈥� Frank Ragano, executive director, said.

Several of the offsite experiences are free, including an immersive video installation by Taiwanese computational artist Chen-An Lee at the Institute of American Indian Arts鈥� Digital Dome, a code-based video installation by French Canadian artist Andr茅e-Anne Roussel at Relay Santa Fe, and an open studio experience with Santa Fe artist and scientist Thomas Ashcraft at his 鈥渂unker, lab and dream hole鈥� next to Meow Wolf.

鈥淭om (Ashcraft) is really a world-builder, and it鈥檚 like you鈥檙e entering Tom鈥檚 head when you go into his space,鈥� Ragano said. 鈥溾�� He鈥檚 listening to the moons of Jupiter and broadcasting things called 鈥榮prites鈥� (large-scale electrical discharges in the mesosphere), which are these light forms you can鈥檛 see, because they happen so fast.鈥�

A number of artists at Currents 2026 have made work in collaboration with artificial intelligence programs. Although AI has become the subject of heated public debates in recent months, with at least three pro-AI commencement speakers at college graduation ceremonies being met with , Ragano said there is a difference between unoriginal 鈥淎I slop鈥� and the judicious use of AI technology by smart, imaginative artists.

鈥淚n the AI-artist relationship, you鈥檙e really training each other 鈥� and that could go many ways,鈥� Ragano said. 鈥淚f an artist doesn鈥檛 have a strong sense of themselves, they could get overwhelmed by the AI, where their self is not coming through. But if you鈥檝e got a strong person who knows what they want, AI is really a collaborator, and amazing things can happen.鈥�

On Saturday, June 13, Currents will host a scholarly symposium, titled 鈥淓mergence of Other: the Numinous, Technology and Our Future Selves.鈥� Moderated by Santa Fe-based mythologist and philosopher of technology John Fujio Mandeville, the symposium will address the impact of new technologies, including AI, on the human psyche.

鈥淥ne of the most important things to me, in terms of what this symposium is supposed to be, is audience engagement. So, we鈥檙e leaving lots of time for Q&A, hoping (the discussion) stimulates them to start speaking about how they鈥檙e seeing things from their side. We really want to get a dialog going with the audience,鈥� Ragano said.

Although Currents bills itself as a new media festival, Ragano said the focus has always been on the quality of the art, regardless of how 鈥渘ew鈥� the technologies in question may be. One of the offsite projects, 鈥淟AVARE,鈥� by Santa Fe artists KB Thomason and Ria Leigh Res Extensa 鈥� collectively known as Saint Profanus 鈥� focuses on a very old technology: scent.

鈥淲e were thinking a lot about the context of Currents and exploring new technologies, and how we really wanted to create a space for people to explore more ancient technologies, such as the technologies of our sensing bodies,鈥� Thomason said. 鈥淪o, that鈥檚 the starting point for 鈥楲AVARE.鈥欌��

The project takes its name from the Latin word for 鈥渨ash,鈥� from which the word 鈥渓avender鈥� is derived. In medieval times, the artists said, many female laundry workers moonlighted as sex workers and used lavender to perfume themselves, as well as the clothes they washed. As visitors enter Saint Profanus Studios, they will experience a complex fragrance with lavender notes, created by Res Extensa, while being bathed in a lavender light. Res Extensa said the lavender she used in her formula comes from the lavender farm at Los Poblanos.

Visitors will also hear a work of sound art, which Thomason made by translating the scent molecule of a lavender plant into a MIDI pattern. Visitors are invited to stand, sit or lounge in the space for as long as they like, breathing the scented air and listening to the lavender-inspired music.

鈥淲e were curious about what a space could look like that offers a cleansing of our attention, where you can turn off your phone and have sort of a palate cleanse before moving onto other parts of the festival,鈥� Thomason said.

One of the kinetic sculptures on view at El Museo Cultural, 鈥淏irds in Flight鈥� by Julia Daser and Pepi Ng, provides a real-time visualization of bird migrations across the United States. The sculpture consists of motorized steel 鈥渨ings鈥� that flap at different speeds depending on how many birds are currently in the sky.

鈥淲e usually see flight captured in two dimensions 鈥� through images or video,鈥� Daser said. 鈥淏y building a kinetic sculpture, we wanted to bring the movement back to its original form.鈥�

Friday鈥檚 opening night festivities will feature beverages by Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery and a series of multimedia performances. One of the performances, 鈥淟istening to the Ether,鈥� by the Brooklyn-based Testu Collective (Serena Stucke and Dan Tesene), uses a magnetic drum machine made from some of the same technology used in electric guitars.

鈥淎 guitar pickup is what鈥檚 inducing the current in the guitar, and when it鈥檚 used in an electic guitar, the string is vibrating at hundreds or thousands of times per second. What we鈥檝e done is slowed that process way down,鈥� Tesene said. 鈥淎nd we鈥檙e using really strong magnets to replace the guitar string. So, we can create a much slower rhythmic pattern, using the exact same technology.鈥�

The performers can produce different tones, pitches and timbers by moving the magnetic pickups in different directions over three spinning disks. After watching Testu Collective鈥檚 demonstration on opening night, visitors can return for the duration of the festival to play and experiment with the technology themselves.

Currents is an internationally known festival that continues to attract participants from multiple continents, but Ragano said it also serves as a showcase for local talent. Approximately one-third of this year鈥檚 artists, he said, are based in New Mexico.

鈥淐urrents is really a very community-based festival,鈥� Ragano said.

For additional information on the 10-day festival, including a complete schedule, visit .

Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the sa国际传媒官网网页入口. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .