About

I’m a multidisciplinary artist working at the intersections of culture, technology, science, and social impact. I use various materials and forms to create sensory experiences that inspire presence, spark connection, and invite reflection on our individual and collective humanity.

My current focus is on Synch.Live, a social art experience and behavioral science experiment that uses wearable technology and a landmark algorithm to foster human cooperation. Developed in close collaboration with a team of UK-based scientists and technologists, Synch.Live is an in-person group game that exhorts us to play, tap into instinct, fall into rhythm, and experience the exhilaration of human connection. We use technology not to de-center us through disorienting perspective or sensory overload but rather to center us in our own bodies, in a space of “emptiness,” in the Buddhist sense. Liminal, meditative, emergent, this experience primes us to connect, self-organize, and create the space for novel interactions to emerge. I see it as a hopeful way forward in these divided times: a visceral, first-person experience of self-organization and a thrilling demonstration of collective human potential.

Early on, I collaborated with Jennifer Macdonald under the name of Leone & Macdonald. Our large-scale installations and sculptural objects used language as both form and material to address charged contemporary issues. In addition to gallery and museum exhibitions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia, our work was featured in the Whitney Biennial and is in the Whitney Museum’s permanent collection.

In 2000, I expanded into digital media and founded a creative studio, Cabengo, to explore what was then the digital wild west. As the principal and creative lead, I directed a mix of digital, animation, video, print, and experiential work for world-class institutions including the Smithsonian Museum, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Contemporary Jewish Museum, Colección Patricia de Cisneros and Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor/ iCivics. Our work earned industry recognition from the Webby Awards, SXSW Interactive, MuseWeb, Business Week Magazine, and others.

I was an adjunct professor and visiting critic at the Rhode Island School of Design, and a visiting professor at the University of California, San Diego. I have been a visiting artist at many universities, including MIT, Columbia University, Cooper Union, Brown University, and School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Grants include National Endowment for the Arts, Art Matters Foundation Fellowship, Penny McCall Foundation, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation, among others.

I earned an AB from Brown University in Semiotics and English and American Literature and a BFA in Art from California Institute of the Arts and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study program in Studio Art. I studied Positive Psychology and community mediation, and am a certified mediator in New York.