Quarterly: The Automobile

Q1: The Automobile 

Why do cars look the way they do? What changes to car design might lead us to experience cities in a whole different way? What’s going on with all the Waymos on the road? Join us for a discussion of the automobile past, present & future. 

Featuring:

Jasmin Blasco is a French-American artist who works with sound, language, film, installation and performance. His practice explores the relationship between interpretation, translation and narration. Blasco’s work pays particular attention to the evolving dialog between communication systems and their embodiment, observing the ways in which narratives emerge out of the encounter between the lived experience and the built environment.  His work has been exhibited at the Antarctica Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Istanbul Modern, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The MAK Center LA, Zébulon, The Music Center LA, Human Resources, Coaxial, Café OTO, Iklektic, Spektrum, Goldsmith, Ikono.tv, Baert Gallery, Wilding Cran Gallery and with Seymour Projects in Paris.

Claudio Carbone was born in Florence, Italy, raised in the parking lot of a FIAT dealership, and formed creative skill set in Turin as a designer at Stile Bertone. Taking naps in the Stratos Zero he realized interiors were his safe place. Under Technicon and Vintech contracts he got hired to design, lead and manage teams at some of the most prestigious design offices in the LA area such as General Motors, VW Group DCC, Honda Advanced Design and Faraday Future where he helped manage a talented team from ideation phase to beta car building. He founded CARBONE STUDIO in 2018 and declared independence from OEM careers, expanding further into a more diverse, yet more intimate and sustainable way of working.

Nora N. Khan is an independent critic, essayist, curator, and educator based in Los Angeles, where she is currently Arts Council Professor at UCLA in Design Media Arts. Her writing on philosophy of AI and emerging technologies, and the future of creative production in a technocratic age, is referenced heavily across fields. Formally, this work attempts to theorize the limits of algorithmic knowledge and locate computation’s influence on critical language. Her books are AI Art and the Stakes for Art Criticism (2025), Seeing, Naming, Knowing (2019) and Fear Indexing the X-Files (2017), with Steven Warwick. She is a member of the Curatorial Ensemble of the 2026 edition of Counterpublic, one of the nation’s largest public civic exhibitions, focused next on ‘Near Futures’.  She was the Co-Curator with Andrea Bellini of the Biennale de L’Image en Mouvement 2024, A Cosmic Movie Camera, hosted by Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, and also curated Manual Override at The Shed (2020).

Joanne McNeil is the author of WRONG WAY (2023) and LURKING (2020). Her writing on technology and art has appeared in Filmmaker magazine, Technology Review, and The Nation.

Gabriel Wartofsky is a Los Angeles-based designer and strategist who leverages design to [re]connect people to the joy of everyday life. His work is dedicated to creating joy-driven products, spaces, and experiences that celebrate individuality while fostering a sense of community. With a deep understanding of the intersection between design, technology, and culture, Gabriel has been at the forefront of innovation, shaping future-forward products and systems that blend delight with environmental responsibility. He has led cross-disciplinary teams across industries—from sustainable transportation and cleantech to finance, retail, and hospitality—consistently pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Born in Washington, D.C., Gabriel holds degrees from both Georgetown University (2003) and ArtCenter College of Design (2009). He currently resides in Los Angeles, where he continues to explore the potential of design to create meaningful connections.

Dec 14, 2024 at 5pm
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, 90057

Thanks to The Poetic Research Bureau for hosting!