Rhizome has revealed the line-up for the 2026 edition of its landmark art and technology programme Seven on Seven (7×7), returning to the New Museum on 16th May.
First launched in 2010, 7×7 pairs seven artists with seven technologists, challenging each duo to collaborate over the course of a day and present a newly developed project in a live public conference. Over the years, the format has become a key platform for experimental thinking at the intersection of art, science and emerging technologies.
This year’s edition is framed by the theme “Containment”, exploring how complex systems—biological, computational, financial and social—are shaped by interdependence, care and contingency. The concept also reflects ongoing debates around artificial intelligence, where “containment” refers to the mechanisms used to control and align AI systems, while drawing inspiration from Zoe Sofia’s influential essay Container Technologies.
Set against the backdrop of the New Museum’s current exhibition New Humans: Memories of the Future, the programme continues a wider institutional inquiry into shifting definitions of the human in a technologically mediated world.
Curated by Rhizome alongside Neema Githere and the collective Bi?nJiè, the 2026 edition brings together a wide-ranging group of practitioners working across disciplines.
Highlights from this year’s pairings include software engineer Lucas Gelfond with artist-engineer Karyn Nakamura; conceptual artist Agnieszka Kurant working alongside biologist Michael Levin, researcher Emily Ertle and technologist Jenn Leung; and filmmaker Andrew Thomas Huang paired with artist-scientist Stephanie Zhang.
Elsewhere, composer Debit collaborates with technologist Saarim Zaman, while Neema Githere also joins Kenyan human-rights-in-tech specialist Mercy Mutemi. The programme is completed by a pairing between computing researcher Josiah Hester and musician Caleb Rimtobaye, alongside research collectives including Disintegrator and Bi?nJiè.
In addition to the live presentations, the event will showcase outcomes from Rhizome’s Counterstructural Commons Residency, developed in partnership with the Mozilla Foundation, which brought together artists and technologists to prototype alternative technological futures.
The 2026 edition also marks a significant moment for the New Museum, as it will be the first 7×7 to take place following the institution’s expansion designed by Rem Koolhaas and Shohei Shigematsu of OMA.
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