John Holmes is an artist, creative technologist, and community organizer based in Nashville, Tennessee. His work operates at the intersection of immersive media, critical technology, systems theory—blending installation, interaction, performance, and symbolism to create experiences that transform perception.

Holmes explores how systems shape identity, behavior, and belief. Drawing from disciplines like cybernetics, mysticism, and design, his practice centers on art as an experiential technology—a tool not just for representation but for transformation. Through embodied interfaces, he invites audiences into altered states of awareness, prompting reflection on the systems they inhabit and the selves they perform.

As the founder and executive director of New Media Nashville, Holmes is building a cultural R&D studio and artistic movement dedicated to designing post-capitalist creative infrastructure. NMN’s work resists extraction and spectacle, offering instead moments of resonance, co-authorship, and technological agency. Their installations double as prototypes for a different world—one in which art is cultural infrastructure and technology is designed for collective human flourishing.

Holmes’s installations often integrate sensors, cameras, and real-time data, to create responsive environments. Projects like Voluntary Behavior Modification and SEE investigate digital selfhood and surveillance, while works like Infinite Regress and the upcoming NMN flagship Subject//Object use feedback and reflection as metaphors for consciousness and self-awareness. His ongoing body of work interrogates the systems of capitalism, media, memory, embodiment, and perception—aiming not just to make art, but to foster cultural transformation.

IG: @JohnTheShaman

john@newmedianashville.com