Lián Amaris

Who is Lián Amaris?

Lian Amaris is a writer, artist, and creative communicator working to connect real world experiences, performance events, and the new media landscape. She is Artistic Director of Vector Art Ensemble and has authored five original full-length plays and performances that have been professionally produced at such venues as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, HERE Arts Center, The University of Chicago, P.S. 122, the New Orleans Contemporary Art Center, and The University of Massachusetts. Her work also includes popular memes such as Silicon Valley Ryan Gosling and "Things that cannot screen for breast cancer."

Amaris has Master's degrees in Performance Studies and in Interactive Telecommunications, both from New York University, and has contributed articles on performance and media to Theatre Journal, TDR: The Drama Review, and Explorations on Media Ecology, along with several edited collections. In 2011 she was a writing resident with Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts and in 2012 she was a writer for The Next Web. She has presented her art and scholarship at nine international conferences and at over 20 festivals, including such venues as Cambridge University, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, and the Recoleta Cultural Center in Argentina. After three years as a professor of performance studies and digital media at Colorado College, Amaris joined the Education Division of the Brooklyn Museum where for a year she oversaw programs for college and graduate students and worked to bridge the gaps between performance, visual arts, and new media through public programs. In her capacity as a researcher and editor for Douglas Rushkoff, she worked with him on his books Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age; Life, Inc.: How the World Became A Corporation and How To Take It Back; and Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside Out. Since 2011, Amaris has been based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has engaged actively with both the Art and Tech scenes.