About
Chia Amisola is an internet + ambient artist from the Philippines.
Their (web)site-specific art posits worlds & tools where creation is synonymous with liberation. Their practice in ambience is rooted in visibility, ecologies, systems, defaults, infrastructure, the violence of quiet, and sound. Chia is the Founder & Organizer of Developh, a critical technology institute in the Philippines since 2016, and the Philippine Internet Archive.
Index of work available at chia.design.
Artists' CV available at chias.website/CV.
Open to creative collaborations. hotemogirlfriend@gmail.com
Contact
Features
"A further digital artist to keep a close eye on is Chia Amisola, a self-described “internet and ambient artist from the Philippines” who creates website specific art investigating technology’s “love, labour and liberation”." hehe
“A website positing itself as a memorial might be doomed. Dwelling on the web itself means continuously losing access to one’s own past. I’m creating something that by nature is designed for its own disappearance, as a memorial to those who have disappeared."
On the art of websites, with Ana of Usurpator
On websites, love, and gathering, with Elan Kiderman Ullendorff
"Chiara Amisola took a close look at the stories and revelations that people leave below online videos."
Exhibitions
The KUNSTSURFER exhibition Soft Narratives features works by Molly Soda, Maya Man, and Chia Amisola, three artists who utilize the internet to develop their sensitive and multimodal stories. The selected works are also read as examples of a new generation of net artists.
Swords and Kisses, a four day programme of events around an exhibition of works by artists and gamers. The show centres around queer+trans trans visions of a non-linear time-space and experiences of diasporas. The exhibition space becomes a gathering space to create and inhabit other worlds. Queer and global majority artists build portals, props and false promises.
Work Experience
Developh is a critical technology institute based in the Philippines. We reclaim technology as a tool for liberation rather than oppression. Since 2016, we've been working across research, education, advocacy, publishing, and venture-building to rethink the Filipino relationship with technology.
#1 social app in the Philippines
Side Projects
A tiny tool to create, publish, and play collage stories & games — that is a game in itself. A mini fantasy console with its own personality, an accompanying soundtrack & world; a love letter to early operating systems, creation culture, and what it means when our tools have life, too.
Collecting resources & educational material related to the Marcos regime and its dictatorship. A folk archive made to counteract the current regime.
I started playing Genshin Impact (50M+ players), liked its story, then founded the largest English-language lore community with my friends. I lead a moderation & volunteer team on Discord, designed the identity, organized events and streams with 100+ attendees, and grew us to 5K+ members, 15K+ followers, 150K+ monthly sessions all organically. We archive scattered fan speculation, write & organize resources/prints/databases for theorists and casual players.
Uplifting progressive politicals to the masses in digital spaces in the 2019 Philippine midterms, impacting millions of Filipinos & collaborating with leftist senatoriables with a team of 25. I led, designed, and built everything leading strategy.
Education
Sudler Prize (Top Creative Arts Award), Distinction in the Major, Cum Laude
Speaking
An experimental talk + performance sharing fragments on 'Domain Naming' for Kristoffer Tjalve's Naive Yearly.
'Domain naming' explores naming as placemaking. Domain names extend questions of identity, territory, & colonialism onto digital space.
As language is world-shaping, names draw borders, territories, and relations. Online, this is literally so: names identify domains of control..
Research: are.na/chia/on-domain-…
On narrative, power, and the inherent role of technologists as mythmakers. This experimental talk opened up Causal Islands, a conference about the 'future of computing', weaving threads about toolmaking, authorship, distribution, and the capture of culture through technology.
Isn't story the original technology?
Writing
1M+ reads. Since 2016.
Teams
