Reach me at ryanwebber121@gmail.com
Or find me on Instagram
This site is arranged by size of the conversation generated by the work. You'll find conversations with myself through abstracted videos, experiments in representing emotion
through video and sound, and
select projects that have initated and continues to generate conversations beyond this site.
Who are you?
Ryan Webber. A researcher of culture and an engineer of conversations between people, places, technology, and myself. I am also the curator of Black Interactive's Future Legends and Black Ecologies exhibition series.
My work centers on communal learning; the construction of sub-spaces for both active learning and dis-reality. I employ technology and a love of dialogue to develop multi-media installations, topics of conversation, and curatorial arrangements to further our collective understanding of buried stories and the Black experience as a fugitive experience. For me, conversation is both medium and goal, and the study of the visual, sonic, and oral language of Black culture is the foundation of my practice.
Why are you?
I was born in Jamaica to two parents who loved learning as much as they loved people. On coming to America, that connection to the land and my extended family was severed, including my use of Jamaican Patois. As I reconnect with my family and the island I've been drawn to Caribbean migration and the languages we lose and acquire in transit as a means of survival, exploring our curiositites, and expressing culture.
I believe Caribbean migration is a fugitive experience, making the Caribbean diaspora is a fugitive community in foreign lands. I explore how we can use space, technology, and conversation to continue the dialogue of post-colonial thinkers like Sylvia Wynter, Sadiya Hartman, Édouard Glissant, Stuart Hall, Fred Moten, and Stefano Harney.
What were you before?
I was previously a Vice President at Morgan Stanley within Wealth Management Data Security. Cybersecurity taught me all the technology and research skills I employ in my practice and experiments today, but also that things can be broken, rewritten, and appropriated, no matter how permanent they seem. Everything made can be remade and remixed. Before, that I was a collector of underground music and lover of non-linear multiplayer games. Before that, a child who loved the water, the sky, and books.