Allison Tanenhaus (she/her) is a New York–born, Boston–based digital glitch artist. She specializes in trippy op art, anachronistic tech mashups, and unexpected dimensional qualities.
Source material consists of Allison’s photos and crowdsourced media that she reconfigures using smartphone apps. Made with equal parts deliberation and experimentation, the rainbow-hued mutations take on a psychedelic life of their own.
At a time when platforms pervasively cull personal data—and digital flawlessness is the norm—Allison views reclaiming devices, embracing error, and transforming environments as radical acts of autonomy and mindfulness.
Allison’s recent work in AI seeks to creatively short-circuit machine-learning processes. She manipulates the software’s lean toward logic, producing imagery steeped in the saccharine, sinister, and surreal.
Allison is also a marketing and advertising copywriter, which you can read about here.
artist bio
Allison’s work has been showcased in 26 countries via exhibitions, installations, festivals, dance parties, music videos, live performances, and guerrilla street art. Highlights include the ICA Store at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Boston Museum of Science Planetarium, SaveArtSpace, “Empowered Women Empower Women” curated by Paris Hilton, the Alternative Power 100 by shesaid.so and Patreon, and her traveling shows “GlitchKraft” and “Haus Party.”
Allison is a grantee of Somerville’s Visual Art Fellowship and the City of Boston’s Transformative Public Art Program, and is a member of electronic music group The Square Root of Negative Two and optical installation duo bent/haus.
Studied under Zadie Smith, Elvis Mitchell, Amitav Ghosh, Annette Lemieux, Elisabeth Subrin, and Lorelei Pepi
2010 Emerson College (Copyediting Certificate) 2015 MassArt (Continuing Ed, Typography)
public art
2024 Cambridge Science Festival: ArtTechPsyche Symposium, Cambridge, MA 2024 Future Fest, Boston City Hall, MA 2024 Elsewhere Fest, Wichita, KS 2024 Test Print Tuesday, Allston, MA 2023 Topia (fka Emerging Technology in Art Festival), Jackson, MI 2023 SLÄP! Sticker Bus, Tartu, Estonia 2023 LoKo Arts Festival: “Mistery Machine,” Potsdam, NY 2023 Somernova, Somerville, MA 2022 PhygitArt, San Giustino, Italy 2022 FILE LED Show, São Paulo, Brazil 2021–2 City of Boston Transformative Public Art Program: “Frequencies,” Allston, MA 2021 Intervals: “NFTapping,” Nizhny, Russia 2021 Supernova: Silent Screen, 14th and Arapahoe, Denver, CO 2021 Keep Cool Somerville: “Mistery Machine,” Somerville, MA 2021 ArtBeat: Media Art Wall, Somerville, MA 2021 Videofenster: “Corporate Responsibility Project,” Ehrenfeld, Germany 2021 Hochkantfilmfest: “Regenbogenherz,” Bremen, Germany 2021 Streetlight: “Dustria,” Roman Susan, Chicago, IL 2021 Art on TV: “Mind Control,” SaveArtSpace.org, New York, NY 2020 Entryway Projections: “Dustria,”Digital Art Month, Melissa + CADAF, New York, NY 2020 Building Projections: “Breacher, Murmurations, and Wavelengths,” Open Air 2020, UConn Avery Point, Groton, CT 2020 Building Projection: “One Emerson: Virtual Commencement,” Emerson College, Boston, MA 2020 Video Screens: “Orbteka,” Art on the Marquee 30, Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA 2019 Video Wall: “W-ATT,” Art on the Marquee 2, Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, MA 2019 Vinyl Building Wrap and Decals: “Crossing Crystals,” Bulfinch Crossing, Boston, MA 2018 Phone Art Box: “The Future of Telecommunications Was Here,” Somerville Arts Council and Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA
2017 Barry’s Shop, Allston, MA 2017 Love Cat, Scriptorium, Berlin, Germany 2016 A Group Thing, Thomas Young Gallery, Boston, MA 2016 ARTBEAT: International Street Art and Sticker Expo & Sticker Museum, Valpovo, Croatia 2016 Underground Blend, Memphis Pop Art Festival/Designer Toy Summit, Pontotoc, MS 2016 World Wide Slap Convention, Zap Surf Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan 2016 Characters Welcome 5, Tattooed Mom, Philadelphia, PA 2016 D.C. Street Sticker Expo, The Fridge, Washington, D.C. 2016 Urban Up 4, Leipzig, Germany 2016 Stickerfest, Malmö, Sweden 2016 Artifesto, DTLA Graff Lab, Inglewood, CA 2016 Stonehenge 69 Gallery, Cambridge, MA 2016 Barry’s Shop, Allston, MA 2016 Sticker Museum, Invasion of the Stickers, Brooklyn, NY
fashion
2004 Anti-Fashion Show, Arts First, Cambridge, MA 2002 Young Designers’ Showcase (YDS), NY 2001 “Manmade Girl,” VERY UP & CO, NY
2018 Featured Digital Artist, The Webby Awards, January 18 2017 Featured Digital Artist, Xuxoe, December 25, December 29 2017 “Words of the Day” Featured Sticker Artist, Stuck-Up Official, December 2 2017 “24 People And Their Funny Observations About Food,” eBaum’s World, Feb 2016 2017 Geoffrey Asmus, “24 Accurate Observations About Food,” CollegeHumor, February 1 2015 Steven Harrington and Jaime Rojo (co-founders of the Brooklyn Street Art blog), “Temporary Street Art That’s Changing The Graffiti Game,” Ziptopia, October 14 2014 Lara Parker, “21 Things That Are So Damn True,”BuzzFeed, November 6 2004 WWD College Issue, WWD, April 15, p. 19 2003 M.T. Young, “Skirting the Issue: FM Faux Trend Alert,” The Harvard Crimson, March 13 2002 What’s Up Today,” PaperMag.com, August 2002 “Pick of the Day,” Time Out New York, August 29–September 5 2001 Clarel Antoine II, “By Their Own Design: Students Sport D.I.Y. Designs,” The Harvard Crimson, October 16, p. 9 2001 Terry E. Chang, “Nice Legs: Freshman Hawks Bags In NYC," The Harvard Crimson, September 27 2001 Allison Tanenhaus, “Do-It-Yourself Designing,” Tiger Beat, August, p. 18
2015 12th Annual Hot One Inch Action, Hot Art Wet City, Vancouver, BC cards and postcards 2015 Library Thoughts 5, MAMU Gallery + Jokai Klub, Budapest, Hungary 2015 2nd Annual Pop-Up Exhibition, Flock Gallery NH, Manchester, NH 2015 E7900, Aviary Gallery, Jamaica Plain, MA 2015 Sense of Place, Jan Brandt Gallery, Bloomington, IL (Juror: Bill Conger) 2015 Small Works, The New Bohemian Gallery, Brainerd, MN 2015 Blurring the Edges, Dubuque Area Arts Collective, Dubuque, IA
awards
2024 Somerville Artist of the Month (August) 2022 Best Interactive Project: Computer Space International Computer Art Forum 2021 Best Experimental Film (Shortest Division), Festival Angaelica 2021 Best EDM Psy-Trance Song, The Psychedelic Film and Music Festival 2021 Alternative Power 100 Music List: shesaid.so and Patreon 2021 Best Relaxation Music Video: High Tatras Film & Video Festival, Slovakia 2020 Finalist (x2), Honorable Mention (x1): ONE Condoms Design Contest 2019 Shortlist: Palos Verdes Art Center Building Wrap Contest 2019 Semifinalist: City of Cambridge Vacant Storefront Design Contest 2019 Finalist: ONE Condoms Design Contest 2019 LCC (Local Cultural Council) Fellowship: Visual Art, Somerville Arts Council 2018 Runner-Up: 14th Annual Button Badge Design Competition, Stereohype 2016 Merit, Experiential: Events & Entertainment, 56th Annual Hatch Awards, The Ad Club 2016 Finalist: The Top 20 Tweets In The World (This Week), Chicago Tribune 2014 Funniest Commercials of 2014, Spike TV 2013 Second Place: My Sports Clubs’ Winter “Write Our Ad” Contest 2004 #2: Top Ten Favorite Artworks, Books, Musical Recordings, and Websites of 2003, Banks Violette, Artforum International Magazine (I edited an artist’s book; twas not my art!)
