RPM Festival is an experimental media festival based in Boston, MA. RPM celebrates cutting edge experimental art that expands our experience and understanding of what the moving image can be. Now in its 11th year, RPM 2024 featured 24 screening programs and several performances, exhibitions and workshops.

Across the annual festival and monthly solo artist screening series, each year RPM screens hundreds of short media pieces by artists and artist groups who represent more than 32 countries. The monthly solo artist screening series is not only dedicated to the pioneers in the field but also features many established and venerated artists. RPM is dedicated to media arts; short-form poetic, personal, experimental film; long-form essay documentary; and audiovisual performance.

RPM's early history:

RPM was born in 2013, and was jointly held at Colgate University, in Hamilton, NY and at Experimental Intermedia, NYC. Dajuin Yao and Wenhua Shi co-curated the first RPM exhibition, titled Sound Art China, which featured 30 sound artists, including Wang Changcun, Yan Jun, Samson Young and Xu Cheng (Torturing Nurse). RPM 2013 artists-in-residence also presented live sound art performances during the opening week of the inaugural exhibition, and included improvisations, inter-media performances, and circuit bending; additionally, artists conducted demonstrations on sound art workshops throughout the course of the exhibition. At the end of 2013, RPM was installed in Shanghai as a part of West Bund 2013 – Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary Art. Notably, the exhibition and performances also invited international sound artists, from Alva Noto, Merzbow, and Marco Donnarumma, to Jaap Blonk & Edwin van der Heide and DJ Qbert. In the following year, RPM: Sound Art China traveled to Hong Kong (Hong Kong City University, HK) and continued to expand its media art landscape.

Each year RPM will screen around 200 short media pieces by artists and artist groups who represent more than 32 countries and many solo retrospective programs throughout the year.

RPM isn't limited to the Boston area and has a history of traveling to other places and countries. Recently, our highlight programs were screened in Los Angeles (CA), Pittsburg (PA), and both Syracuse and Hamilton (NY) in the U.S., and internationally in London (UK), Berlin (Germany), and across China (Beijing, Macao, Hong Kong, and Shanghai).

Wenhua Shi (President)
Ariel Hou
Robert Harris
Shira Segal

Sarah Keller
Rick Shepardson
Brett Melican
Shira Segal
Ariel Hou
Robert Harris
Douglas Urbank
Michael Davis

Yangqiao Lu
Benny Shaffer
Sarah Bliss
Kalpana Subramanian
Natalie Minik
Sara Jordeno
Ethan Berry
Homa Sarabi
Micheal Joseph
Rafaela Astudillo
Genevieve Carmel
John Knecht