Today, United States Artists announced the awardees of the 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, an annual initiative that supports five artists with unrestricted grants of $50,000 to further their disciplines, practices and innovative approaches in technology and new media.

Supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship awards artists who are expanding the boundaries of creative practice through emerging technologies — from augmented and virtual reality to immersive installations across sound, textile, digital fabrication and software-based work. Fellows use these tools in thoughtful, radical or poetic ways, pushing the field forward and critically engaging its possibilities.

“Through the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship, we aim to not only strengthen the arts and technology ecosystem through long-term investment in the individuals and artistic practices that fuel innovation, but also foster a community among artists and cultural workers and continued growth across the field,” said Kristina Newman-Scott, Vice President for Arts at Knight Foundation. “Working across various disciplines and mediums, this year’s Fellowship class offers an examination of how evolving technological systems shape our environments, behaviors, and forms of connection. Their work inspires consideration for innovation as a site of relational and communal possibility. We are thrilled to support each of these artists and we welcome their arrival and participation within our community.”

The 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows works across media art, technology, performance, and community practice, united by a deep commitment to reimagining technology as a social, cultural, and embodied system rather than a purely technical or commercial one. Across their varied practices, their work collectively explores technology’s capacity to function as an active participant in shaping or redefining our human relationships and environments.

The 2026 Knight Arts + Tech Fellows are:

LIZN'BOW (Miami) – LIZN’BOW (Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty) are a collaborative duo whose practice spans performance, video, music, immersive installation and new media. Rooted in pop aesthetics and cultural critique, their work constructs environments that operate simultaneously as installations, performances, and digital interfaces.

Miguel Novelo (San Jose) – Miguel Novelo is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work combines computational media with philosophical inquiry. Novelo’s artistic expressions include sculptures, interactive moving images, and immersive installations that make use of computer vision, custom software, photogrammetry, and game engines.

Rhonda Holberton (San Jose) – Rhonda Holberton is a new media artist whose multimedia installations integrate digital and interactive technologies with traditional methods of art production. Through these works, Holberton uses materials and platforms that physically connect human bodies via technology, revealing how the signals of digitally engineered worlds have tangible, destabilizing effects on our planet.

Taeyoon Choi (Detroit) – Taeyoon Choi is an artist, writer, and educator who explores the poetics of technology and human relations. He works with images, text, and code oftentimes in collaboration with fellow artists, experts, and community members.

Wes Taylor (Detroit) – Wes Taylor is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice combines installation, video art, and sound to make a world. His decades-long practice hones the lessons and sharpens sensibilities learned from Detroit artists who came before him, shaping his craft of sampling, referencing, and recontextualizing to demonstrate themes of placemaking, histories of entanglement with the present, and the future and the necessity of Black imagination.

The 2026 Fellows were selected by Knight Foundation, United States Artists and a national panel of field leaders, including: Mindy Seu, Associate Professor, UCLA Department of Design Media Arts (Los Angeles, CA); Wade Wallerstein, Associate Curator, Gray Area (San Francisco, CA); and Leo Castañeda, Multimedia Artist and Video Game Designer (Miami, FL).

To date, the Knight Arts + Tech Fellowship program has awarded twenty-five artists, each cohort working among various practices, disciplines and mediums, yet remaining grounded in storytelling, speculative thinking, knowledge sharing and education, and community engagement. This year’s cohort continues to reflect that legacy, emboldened by a spirit of collaboration, collectivism, and experimentation across art and technology with a shared sense of care and consideration for our communities and environments.