Tega Brain

Tega Brain is an environmental engineer and artist who builds systems designed to fail on purpose. Her signature approach exposes the hidden ways technology shapes ecology and our relationship with natural systems. By creating works that deliberately malfunction, Brain reveals the dependencies and assumptions embedded in the technologies we rely on daily.

Based at NYU as a professor, Brain has exhibited her work at major institutions including the Smithsonian, Whitney Museum, and ZKM. She is co-creator of Solar Protocol, a project that demonstrates how solar energy can power internet infrastructure. In 2021, she co-authored Code as Creative Medium (MIT Press), a definitive exploration of code as a creative practice. In 2023, Brain received the Creative Capital Award alongside collaborator Sam Lavigne, recognizing her innovative approach to art and technology.

As a speaker, Brain offers audiences direct insight into how technology and ecology intersect in ways most people never consider. She challenges conventional thinking about what systems are supposed to do by examining failures, dependencies, and the environmental costs of digital infrastructure. Her work bridges art, engineering, and environmental science, providing a rare perspective on how creative practice can expose and interrogate the material foundations of the technological world. For organizations seeking to understand the relationship between technology, nature, and design, Brain's analysis cuts through abstraction to reveal what actually happens when systems encounter their limits.