Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits

Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits are Riga- and Karlsruhe-based artists and co-founders of RIXC Center for New Media Culture in Riga, co-curators of RIXC Art and Science Festival, chief-editors of Acoustic Space, as well as co-chairs of recently founded NAIA – Naturally Artificial Intelligence Art association in Karlsruhe, Germany. Together they create visionary and networked artworks – from pioneering internet radio experiments in 1990s, to artistic investigations in electromagnetic spectrum and collaborations with radio astronomers, and more recent “techno-ecological” explorations. Their projects have been nominated (Purvitis Prize 2019, 2021, International Public Arts Award – Euroasia region 2021), awarded (Ars Electronica 1998, Falling Walls – Science Breakthrough 2021) and shown widely including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Latvian National Museum of Arts, House of Electronic Arts in Basel, Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, and other venues, exhibitions and festivals in Europe, US, Canada and Asia. Smite holds a PhD in sociology of media and culture; her thesis Creative Networks. Her In the Rear-View Mirror of Eastern European History (2011) was published by The Amsterdam Institute for Network Cultures. Currently she is a Professor of New Media Art at Liepaja University, and Senior Researcher at FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel, Switzerland. Smits holds his doctoral degree in arts, and he is a Professor at the Art Academy of Latvia. In 2017 Smits was a Fulbright Researcher in the Graduate Center of NYC.