SMITHSONIAN Acquisitions:

Coinciding with the 250th Anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence, the founding act of this country, we are honored to announce that the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM), part of the national museum system of the USA, has acquired two of our XR extended reality artworks. We give deepest thanks and appreciation to SAAM, especially to curator Saisha Grayson, for recognizing our contributions to U.S. American art. The two selected works underscore and highlight our vision of the important issues threatening the stability and future of not only our nation but of the world itself at this time.

Please see our press release for full statement - and note that "edition" means we can still show them elsewhere - just contact me! Due to SAAM's long scheduling times, it will be several years before either installation is shown in Washington DC.

Beyond Manzanar, an interactive virtual reality installation (2000, Tamiko Thiel and Zara Houshmand, 2nd edition), focuses on recurring threats by the U.S. government of the mass incarceration without due process of US citizens, and of documented and undocumented residents from targeted ethnic minorities, in times of crisis.





ReWildAR, an augmented reality installation (2021, Tamiko Thiel and /p, 1st edition), focuses on the need to support native biomes, plants and pollinators in the devastating fossil fuel driven climate change.

NATIONAL COMMUNICATION MUSEUM (NCM) Acquisitions:

The NCM in Melbourne, Australia has acquired Connection Machines CM-2 and CM-5 that had been preserved in various universities in Australia! Thanks to Karl von Möller for finding a good home for them, via NCM CEO and artistic director Emily Siddons, and curator Mel Huang for wanting to include them in her exhibit "Radical Computing!"





Opening 19 Sept. 2026 - 21 Feb. 2027: The CM-2 will be on exhibit - sadly, I will miss the opening! :-(

Radical Computing: guest curated by designer/technologist Mel Huang, this exhibit explores the story of computing – from large, expensive machines used by only a few experts, to personal computers we brought into our homes and lives and made our own.

NEW BOOK describes Connection Machine's influence

"Steve Jobs in Exile", by Geoffrey Cain

My friend Joanna Hoffman, Steve Jobs' "right hand" at both Apple and NeXT, told me years ago that when Steve Jobs first saw a photo of the Connection Machine, he immediately asked her to find the designer, as Jobs wanted "him" to design the NeXT machine. Unfortunately, I had disappeared to Europe to go to art school and we had lost contact. (See my interview with Joanna.)

Geoffrey Cain, for his new book on Steve Jobs' "years in exile" from Apple, confirmed our story, telling me "many of the former founders and execs [at NeXT] mentioned your work" (private communication).

See excerpt page 50: "Steve discovered the Connection Machine through Joanna Hoffman and became obsessed—here was proof that a computer’s form could deliver emotional satisfaction alongside raw functionality. "

ending soon

FINAL WEEKS @ ERES FOUNDATION MUNICH

03 - 26 September 2026 after the August summer break

ParadoQc/Machines: An immersive journey into the quantum levels of an atom.
Augmented Reality livestream immersive installation, Tamiko Thiel and /p, 2025

Commissioned by the ERES Foundation with scientific advice from the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) in celebration of the 2025 International Year of Quantum Science and Technology for the exhibit:
"Seeing the Unseen: Quantum physics and art as entangled worlds."



ParadoQc/Machines is a deep dive into the quantum levels of the atom, and the quantum properties of superposition and entanglement that enable individual atoms to be used as "qubits" - quantum bits - for neutral atom quantum computers.

Statement from quantum physicist Prof. Dr. Steffen Glaser, TU Munich:
"ParadoQc/Machines gives visitors an intuitive, full-body encounter faithfully reflecting the underlying quantum properties, informed by the artists' extensive research and engagement with leading scientists in the field."

Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Steffen Glaser (TUM) and Prof. Dr. Johannes Zeiher (LMU, planqc), of the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology MCQST for their extremely generous time and patience as we peppered them with questions on the intimate details of quantum physics. (Note: All errors are exclusively the fault of the artists themselves!)

Until 06 Sept. 2026 @ Chiostro del Bramante, Rome

"FLOWERS. Wonderful Nature" is now featuring two of our immersive AR livestream installations:


Enter the Plastocene, (2021, with /p), with corals and shells from the Museo Civico di Zoologia di Roma.





Forest Flux/Waldwandel, originally commissioned by the Kunsthalle Munich for their traveling exhibit "FLOWERS FOREVER," and now in its own space in a diorama of a Bavarian forest.

Until 22 Nov. 2026 @ ECC/Palazzo Mora, during the Venice Biennial

"Wilderness", collaborative 21-screen video installation by 8 members of the United Media Artists (UMA) group.

Featured at the European Cultural Centre (ECC)in Palazzo Mora, Cannaregio, Venice/Italy, in the exhibit "Personal Structures - Confluences," for the duration of the Venice Biennial.





"Wilderness" evokes a place that obeys its own laws, an uncultivated mythic world, a place to explore or to hide; an example of the wonders of life – the dichotomy of beauty and danger. In our collaborative video installation "Wilderness," 16 videos by 8 different artists loop over 21 screens, creating a vibrant collage of often contradictory images of what wilderness is or means to us.

Participating UMA artists: Tamiko Thiel, Terry Flaxton, Will Pappenheimer, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, Fernanda D'Agostino, Nina Sobell, John Sanborn and James Bloom.

AWARDS:

SIGGRAPH, 2024

In 2024 I received the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art! I am still wobbly-kneed at being named to this illustrious group, with so many true s/heros of mine! SIGGRAPH was so important for the beginning of my career as a media artist, in the early days when few art venues would dare to show VR artworks.

AWE XR Hall of Fame

I am honored to be in the inaugural cohort inducted into the newly formed XR Hall of Fame, including many of my s/heros and friends!

CAI Magazine's Top 20 Most Famous Digital Artists

According to the ranking algorithm on artfacts.net, I am #10 on this list! Read their description of how they came up with the rankings - who am I to argue with an algorithm? ;-) Grateful that I lived to see the words "famous" and "digital" and "artists" in the same sentence in art magazines! :-)