ART+TECH Festival 2026 Theme: "The New Human"
The future is built from the debris of the past — a coral reef of human traces, layered into new bodies, minds, and worlds
Why This Matters
As intelligence becomes distributed and cognition grows atmospheric, the question is no longer whether humans and machines will merge — but how we will evolve together.
The project began as a collaboration between Loop Exit™ and CODAME ART+TECH, weaving foresight research with participatory creation. It acts as both a manifesto and a creative inquiry into what it means to be human amid the rise of synthetic cognition, sensory technology, and ecological interdependence.
The Reef Model — Mind, Body, Society
At the center of The New Human is a triadic model — a living reef of interdependence:
🧠 Distributed Mind
The Distributed Mind extends beyond the skull. Our thoughts now move between humans and machines, forming a shared field of awareness. Cognition becomes ecological — hybrid, relational, and co-authored.
💠Bodies in Transformation
The body has become interface and instrument. Sensors, haptics, and biofeedback reveal how emotion drives cognition and how data reshapes identity. To become cyborg is to become porous — feeling the world through new thresholds.
🌍 Symbiotic Societies
Society functions as a nervous system — alive with data, platforms, and power. Our civic structures must evolve toward reciprocity: systems that care, not just optimize. The call is for architectures of empathy and digital commons designed as infrastructures of care
These three domains — Mind, Body, Society — are not separate.
They co-create each other, like coral, light, and water in a reef. Each pulse influences the rest.
The Distributed Mind — A Preview of the Next Wave
At the CODAME ART+TECH Aperitivo on November 5, 2025, we’ll open this inquiry with “The Distributed Mind of The New Human” themes researched and presented by Loop Exit and Christopher Schutte.
In collaboration with CODAME and Yosun Chang, creative technologist and hacker-at-large, the evening bridges San Francisco and Milan, exploring how digital thought takes physical form.
Together, we’ll experiment with the idea that thought can be felt — through vibration, material, and shared perception — as cognition becomes an atmospheric field connecting art, design, and technology.
This event marks the first chapter in an unfolding series leading to the Creative Hackathon: Exploring The New Human (February 2026) — where artists, designers, and technologists will prototype new forms of human–machine symbiosis.
The New Human theme will be explored in a series of Aperitivos, part of the CODAME ART+TECH Festival (2026) leaning toward the Creative Hackathon in 2026, we’ll reimagine together what it means to be human in the age of collective intelligence.
Read the Full Foresight Research & Curatorial Project
📖 The New Human: loopexitnow.com/the-new-human
Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Created in collaboration with CODAME ART+TECH
Call for New Humans
Hack, mentor, volunteer, or simply explore how art and technology connect us all. Be part of a creative community in Milano and San Francisco.
As our cognition becomes atmospheric, our bodies networked, and our societies algorithmic, The New Human asks: how do we stay human together?
Together, we’ll prototype The New Human — layered, adaptive, and beautifully unpredictable — through a series of events in Milano, San Francisco, and beyond.
This is more than a hackathon: it’s a living cultural R&D playground for human–tech co-evolution, where artists, designers, and technologists explore what it means to be human in the age of intelligent machines and sensory AI.
👉 Submit your interest: codame.com/p/call-for-new-humans
