Spectral Remix is an offsite, public-facing exhibition that will run in parallel with the 2025 American Anthropological Association meetings in New Orleans, from November 19–23, at Merchant Hall. The project brings together anthropologists, artists, and multimedia creators exploring the creative and critical possibilities of remix as both an artistic and ethnographic practice.

Remix, as a practice, is as old as collage yet continues to evolve through new digital techniques and intensities. It speaks to contemporary concerns—from the circulation of materials to the automation of creative processes through AI—while opening space for collaboration and reflection within ethnographic work.

Expanding on the AAA 2025 theme, Ghosts, Spectral Remix examines the intersection of remix with ghostly presences and absences. Remix disorders and reorders; it brings fragments from the past into the present and evokes possible futures. The exhibition includes projects that engage with the hauntology of remix—how specters of the past persist and shape perception, expression, and action.

Curated by Craig Campbell (University of Texas at Austin) and Dominic Boyer (Rice University), Spectral Remix will feature multimedia works that resonate with anthropological theory and history, and that experiment with new ways of seeing, feeling, and thinking through the spectral dimensions of contemporary life.

November, 2025

Curated by Dominic Boyer & Craig Campbell

Design by Jaime Ramírez Cotal & Craig Campbell