Opening Reception: March 6
Virtual Panel Discussion: March 26, 6pm

Join us for the latest collaboration between the Institute for Electronic Arts (iea) at Alfred University and RoCo. "Authenticity as Illusion" features two recent video artworks by Jake Brush (iea alum) and Kelli S Williams. The exhibition is curated by Myles Calvert, director of iea.

New media, particularly reality TV and queer culture, creates a chaotic, hyperreal digital identity crisis. The self is a fluid performance, warped by societal pressure and cultural appropriation, blurring the line between authentic and edited. Artists explore this, revealing that reality is fiercely crafted, not fixed, and that authenticity is an illusion.

Image: Feed by Kelli S Williams

About the Artists

Kelli Williams is an animator and visual artist. She uses stop-motion animation, photography, augmented reality, installation, and humor to create work that comments on society through the lens of social media and technology. She is an alumna of Morgan State University where she majored in Fine Art, with a concentration in photography. She received her Master of Fine Arts from Columbus College of Art in Design. She is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been featured in the Huffington Post, Columbus Live, Hyperallergic, Artnet, Baltimore magazine, and Netflix’s Peabody Award winning short film, Cops and Robbers. @kshantee

Jake Brush (b.1994) is an artist who lives in New York. He is interested in reality television, gossip, and interpersonal conflicts. He works in video, performance, sculpture and installation. Recent work has shown at Wave Hill, Duplex, The Shed, International Objects, Below Grand, The Emily Harvey Foundation, Nina Johnson and Electronic Arts Intermix. He has participated in residency programs Shandaken: Storm King, Signal Culture, and the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred State. His work has been featured in BOMB and Cultured Magazine. His first European solo exhibition “Mall, Interrupted” opened with Kunstplaats Vonk (Hasselt, Belgium) in May 2025. @jake__brush

About the Curator

Myles Calvert was born in Collingwood, Ontario. He attended the University of Guelph with a focus in printmaking, before traveling to London, UK where he completed his MA in Printmaking, at Camberwell College of Art (University for the Arts, London). During this time, he worked for the National Portrait Gallery before moving to Hastings in East Sussex, to teach printmaking at Sussex Coast College (now East Sussex College) and become the Duty Manager of the newly established Jerwood Gallery (now Hastings Contemporary). Four formative years were spent as a Visiting Professor in Expanded Media at Alfred University (New York State College of Ceramics) and Alfred State College of Technology, teaching across print-based mediums including core foundations programs, senior advising, and graduate mentorship. Four additional years were spent at Winthrop University within the department of Fine Arts as an Associate Professor with a focus on printmaking and foundations courses. Recent residencies include Art Print Residence (Barcelona, Spain) and Proyecto’ace (Buenos Aires, Argentina), a lecture/workshop at PUCP (Pontificia Universidad Catòlica del Perú) in Lima, the Tamarind Institute (Albuquerque, NM), and the McColl Center (Charlotte, NC). Myles is currently the Director of the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University, New York.

The Institute for Electronic Arts

The iea is a high technology research studio facility within the School of Art and Design, NYSCC, Alfred University, New York. The iea encourages and supports projects that involve interactive multi-media systems, experimental sonic/video production, digital imaging, and publications. The iea is committed to developing cultural interactions spurred by technological experimentation and artistic investigations.

Artists are supported with residencies, access to facilities, equipment, and technical expertise, allowing them to expand and deepen their research. The New Media residency program, which emphasizes video, sound, installation, and cutting-edge image-making technologies, plays a pivotal role in the development of their ongoing and new projects.

New York State Council on the Arts
Farash Foundation
County of Monroe
Gouvernet Arts Fund
Richard Schwartz
Anne Havens
and over 1,000 Members!