Artist talk with Ernie Roby-Tomić

Ernie Roby-Tomić is an audiovisual, installation, performance artist, and musician hailing from the heavenly hollers of the Appalachian region. His works are a coalescence of emergent 3D technologies, video games, energy extraction industries, workers’ rights, and sleep research.

By mining data from video games and Geographic Information Systems, Roby-Tomić binds electric fantasies to the materiality of the minerals mined for power, and the axes of labor entangled in its extraction. Material in video games and geo-specific topologies are recontextualized as signifiers of fatalism in geo-specific locations known as “sacrificial zones”. He co-leads the Appalachian art collective Crik Holler.

Roby-Tomić holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from West Virginia University in sculpture and printmaking and a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of Florida in Art + Technology. He works currently with Sámi University of Applied Sciences in the Sámi AI Lab as a lecturer and project leader.