Hello Velocity
ABOG Fellow for Socially Engaged Art
As an ABOG Fellow art collective Hello Velocity will create Gradient, an e-commerce plugin that prices products higher or lower depending on a customer’s income level. Leveraging their design, marketing, and technical expertise, Hello Velocity will use Gradient to demonstrate an equitable pricing system to a mass consumer audience.
Artist Bio
Hello Velocity is a digital creative studio based in New York, founded by artists Lukas Bentel, Kevin Wiesner, and JS Tan whose practice includes marketing, branding, commerce, and art. The studio specializes in creating experimental online applications/interactions/interventions into culture. Hello Velocity leverages its skills across disciplines to develop and push new ideas, with an emphasis on successfully reaching mass audiences.
The three founders met in the Dual Degree Program between Brown University and RISD from which they collectively hold degrees in Computer Science, Materials Engineering, Computer Music, Furniture Design and Industrial Design. Their professional experiences have taken them to Buzzfeed, artist residencies in China, and financial analytics startups, among other places.
Visit Hello Velocity’s website
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- Concept pitch for Gradient at New Inc Demo Day summer 2016. Photo: NEW INC
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- Gradient project outline. Photo: Hello Velocity
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- “Designing pricing systems for economic equity,” a panel at the 2016 Seattle Design festival organized by Hello Velocity with Natasha Marin and Josephine Devanbu. Photo: Natasha Marin
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- A rudimentary sliding scale prototype, used as a point-of-sale system at the 2016 Internet Yami-Ichi, constructed as part of a design research process. Photo: Hello Velocity
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- Hello Velocity’s past practice has included several mass-audience web stunts. Bitelabs was a satirical biotech startup, soliciting celebrity biopsies in order to grow their flesh in vitro and produce artisanal salami. Covered in all major tech press, Bitelabs raised questions around celebrity culture, startup aesthetics, and bioethics. Image: Hello Velocity
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- Hello Velocity’s past practice has included several mass-audience web stunts. The McMass Project attempted to crowdfund $1M to purchase a McDonald’s franchise to a failing church. Combining design solutionism with religious commercialization, the McMass Project received interest from a half-dozen interested churches, and became the top Google search result for the word “McDonald’s,” which subsequently cease-and-desisted the project. Image: Hello Velocity
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- Early stage design mockup for Gradient as an e-commerce plugin. Image: Hello Velocity
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- Early stage design mockup for Gradient as an e-commerce plugin. Image: Hello Velocity
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- A simple image with an important message. Image: Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire
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- Working hard or hardly working? The Hello Velocity team hard at work navigating time zones in New York and Seattle. Photo: Hello Velocity