herstory (short)...

Joana Chicau is a designer, researcher, and technologist with a background in choreography. Her work bridges human–computer interaction and computational arts.

...herstory (longform)...

She researches the intersection of the body with designed and programmed environments, broadening how computation is presented and made accessible to the public.

She collaborates internationally with technology and creative industries, as well as with non-profit and activism organisations, on both commissioned and self-initiated projects. She also provides consultancy on research and design for product development.

Her projects take shape across multiple formats, from online platforms and printed books to workshops and performative events. She prioritises the use of Free/Libre Open Source software.

Chicau holds a PhD titled "Human-Computer Counter-Choreographies", that combined embodiment and choreography to reveal and critique data-tracking algorithms found in web environments. The project consisted of a custom browser extension, a live-coding performance, workshop series, and a web-based artwork. It involved mixed qualitative and quantitative data collected from over 90 participants. The results showed that the embodied and choreographic approach significantly increased their awareness of the prevalence of data tracking. Her research has been published at venues such as ISEA and ACM (CHI, SIGGRAPH, DIS, TEI, C&C).

She participates, curates and co-organizes events involving multi-location collaborative coding, community roundtables on digital equity and activism. Including Mesh Festival (Basel), Fiber Festival (Amsterdam), Piksel (Bergen), Transmediale Vorspiel (Berlin), Art Meets Radical Openness (Linz), Radical Networks (NYC), Seoul Mediacity Biennale, to name a few.

She is an associate lecturer at the University of Arts of London (UAL) and has also been tutoring and facilitating workshops in international various institutions. Including Central St Martins, Sandberg Institute, Pratt Institute, NYU, among others.

She actively contributes to projects at The Movement Research Unit (MRU) . She is a former member of Varia.Zone, center for everyday technology and co-founder of Netherlands Coding Live.