NEW YORK – Onassis USA and the New Museum’s NEW INC announced the launch of the Onassis, NEW INC Extended Reality Studio – also known as ONX Studio – with two dozen artists and producers working in extended reality (XR), for a year-long term to develop significant works for the public realm. 

ONX Studio distinguishes itself as a hybrid space where work is both created and presented. It functions as an accelerator, a subsidized production studio and workspace, and an exhibition gallery located in the Onassis Gallery of Olympic Tower in Midtown Manhattan. Each year the studio space will transform into an extended reality gallery for a month-long showcase featuring ONX artists. The first showcase is planned for later in 2021. ONX is a two-year pilot program and steered by NEW INC’s Cofounder Karen Wong and Director Stephanie Pereira, and the Onassis Foundation’s Head of Digital and Innovation Prodromos Tsiavos. 

ONX Studio will be in close dialogue with NEW INC (New York City) and Onassis Lab (Athens), the Onassis Foundation’s cross-disciplinary incubator that seeks to support innovation and disruption across disciplines. The three entities will support each other through curated conversations, skill sharing, and collaborative projects with a goal of creating an ecosystem that connects extended reality artists in the United States and Europe and beyond. ONX Studio’s first international event will take place on Friday, December 18, 11 AM-12:30 PM EST, Bodies in Space: Extended Realities in Live Performance, in which three extended reality artists- Sarah Rothberg, Theo Triantafyllidis, and Lu Yang- will be in conversation with Janet Wong, Associate Artistic Director at New York Live Arts.  

More information about the online event is available online: https://www.newmuseum.org/calendar/view/1694/bodies-in-space-extended-realities-in-live-performance. 

Over the past six years, NEW INC, the New Museum’s cultural incubator, has attracted top talents who have been exploring storytelling through digital tools including AR, VR, projection mapping, spatial audio, and motion capture. In partnership with Onassis USA, ONX Studio will be home to a new community of artists and producers whose practices range from the embodied Black experience to audio explorations to performative multiplayer climate change games.  

To commemorate the international partnership with the Onassis Foundation, three Greek artists have been selected as the inaugural Onassis Fellows at ONX Studio. Loukia Alavanou, Manolis Manousakis, and Theo Triantafyllidis will be in dialogue with the studio community through virtual residencies and programs – resulting in future collaborations and inclusion in the annual showcase. 

“At the heart of the Onassis Foundation, we are committed to artistic vision and how creators make us see things anew. More than ever, the way forward is through collaboration and ONX Studio is a manifestation of that belief,” said Onassis Foundation Director of Culture Afroditi Panagiotakou.  

Stephanie Pereira, NEW INC’s Director commented, “Onassis Foundation has been an incredible partner and together we are building an extended reality community that is international, talented, diverse and value-centric. As a space for wild, artistic experimentation supported by a global community of expert advisors and a purpose-built XR production studio, ONX isn’t like anything else out there.” 

ONX Studio, a 3,000-square feet space, provides a hybrid studio-lab for this growing community of extended reality artists where they will be able to develop, beta test, and demo their works in a presentation gallery for curators, producers, collectors, and agencies. The space was designed by the NYC-based architectural firm Leong Leong. 

ONX Studio is fortunate to have an international advisory council whose members hail from U.S. extended-reality hotspots LA, NYC, SF, as well as Athens, London, Paris, Cape Town, and Melbourne.  

ONX Advisory Council is as follows: Chair Afroditi Panagiotakou, Director of Culture, Onassis Foundation; Antoine Cayrol, Co-founder Atlas V; Daanish Masood Alavi, Innovation at the United Nations; Gaby Darbyshire, Founder & Principal, Framestore Ventures; Hunter Gray, Film Producer; Ingrid Kopp, Co-founder, Electric South; Irini Mirena Papadimitriou, Creative Director, FutureEverything; Jake Sally, Head of Development, RYOT; James George, CEO and Co-Founder, Scatter; Kamal Sinclair, Executive Director, Guild of Future Architects; Katrina Sedgwick, CEO Australian Centre for the Moving Image; Laurie Anderson, Writer, Director, Artist, Vocalist; Loren Hammonds, Senior Programmer of Film and Immersive, Tribeca Film Festival; Loretta Sarah Todd, Creative Director, IM4 Lab Indigenous VR/AR/XR Lab; Dr. Maria Roussou, Professor, Interactive Systems, Athens University; Timoni West, Director of XR Tools, Unity; and Vallejo Gantner, Artistic Executive Director, Onassis USA. 

More information is available online: https://www.onx.studio/overview.