A pioneer of digital art created on the personal computer, Palestinian artist, scholar, and educator Samia Halaby innovated her “kinetic paintings” in the late 1980s. Halaby joins us for this special performance with the Kinetic Painting Group, featuring musicians Kevin Nathaniel Hylton, Hasan Bakr, and Tomchess.
Teaching herself the coding languages BASIC and C on the Amiga Commodore 1000, Halaby generated numerous digital abstractions, each featuring luminous shapes and colors that unfold, contract, and grow across the computer screen. Using Windows on a PC, the artist soon developed her own coding program, known as the Kinetic Painting Program, which allows her to manipulate her digital abstractions in real time. Since the 1990s, she has traveled to venues across the world, performing the kinetic paintings alongside live musicians in what she likens to “jam sessions,” often embracing an improvisational relationship between analog instrumentals and her sprawling digital visuals. Halaby describes these performances as “social and alive. I want audiences to feel they’re wandering through my abstract world.”
This program is presented in conjunction with the MoMA installation Hyundai Card First Look: Samia Halaby. After the performance, Halaby and the musicians will be in conversation with Abby Hermosilla, curatorial assistant in the departments of Curatorial Affairs and Media and Performance.