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Allen Riley's website

Allen Riley's website.

I'm an artist, educator and curator specializing in socially interactive video, media art, and learning.


I design hands-on learning at Beam Center and make arcade cabinets with Arcade Commons (previously Death by Audio Arcade). I received an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts at the New York State College of Ceramics and I’m currently a PhD candidate in Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz, where I participate in the Expressive Intelligence Studio. 

My dissertation is titled The Imagination Synthesizer and it is about the history and future of socially interactive video.

My creative projects include arcade games, narrative feature films, video synthesis, live performances, installations, songwriting, and designing STEAM curriculum. I often work with themes of learning and transformation.

As a curator, I work closely with artists and venues to develop new projects and ways of sharing work. My goal is to create moments in which audiences experience and participate in the learning process of the artist. 

CV | Portfolio

Performances and Events ↓

Earth’s Basement (with Shannon Kerrigan), ISM Festival, Olympia, WA, September 14, 2025 | video

Oddly Satisfying curatorial project featuring Blake Andrews, Nina Sobell, Lee Friend Roberts, and Taku Hannoda, Indexical, Santa Cruz, CA, Spring 2025

AI and Video Feedback: An Artist in Conversation with Video Feedback, Immersion Fest, Urbana, IL, September 6, 2024 | video

VIDEOFREAK, Museum of the Moving Image, Queens, NY, February 29–September 8, 2024 | link | news

Synchronization Station, Indexical, Santa Cruz, CA, January 27, 2023 | video | 2024 Lumen Prize Finalist | Official Selection 2024 Slamdance Film Festival

Performance of my songs with Maggie Carson and Or Zubalsky at Sunny's Bar, Brooklyn, NY, January 2020

Episode of The Organist podcast hosted by Andrea Silenzi that features Let the Truth Be Told, the birthday song that I wrote in 2012

Doomed, a grunge fantasy movie I directed in 2009 and screened at Spectacle Theater in 2022

Research and Writing ↓

“Risk Aesthetics in Participatory Art”, SLSA 2025 Society for Literature, Science and the Arts | video

“Popcorn Movie: Dynamic Narrative Feedback for Spontaneous Video Storytelling”, ICIDS 2025 Interactive Conference for Interactive Digital Storytelling | paper | video

“Videofreak: Video Games and Video Art”, MAGFest, 2020 | video

“Learning Productions: Beyond Project-Based Learning”, Reclaiming Digital Futures, with Grace Freedman, Brian Cohen, Calvin Stalvig, and Juan Pablo Sarmiento,  Susan Crown Exchange, UC Irvine, 2019 | paper

“Education in the Digital Age: Learning and Making at Beam Center”, No Such Thing hosted by Marc Lesser, 2017 | podcast

"33CC66", my entry for Websafe2k16, edited by Josephine Livingstone and Ben Sisto, 2016

Internet Environments, MFA Thesis Book, 2012 | pdf