Diego S. Maranan

Professor of Art, Media and Design

I am a transdisciplinary artist, educator, designer, and researcher whose work explores the intersections of embodiment, technology, ecology, and future imaginaries. My creative practice bridges digital media, biological systems, and somatic experience, often through installations, wearables, and participatory experiments that foreground human and more-than-human relationships. I am currently Professor of Art, Media, and Design at the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), where I have also held leadership roles as Dean; the Chair of the Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies program; the Program Development Associate for Culture and the Arts; and the representative to the University of the Philippines President’s Committee for Culture and the Arts, among others. I am currently the Officer-in-Charge Executive Director at the UP Intelligent Systems Center, where I drive support for challenge-driven research initiatives in artificial intelligence, data science, complex systems, and human-centered technologies. In this capacity, I advocate for the national engagement by the arts and humanities with science, technology, and complex systems. My work has been exhibited internationally in festivals, museums, and artscience platforms in Europe, Asia, and North America. I am a co-founder of SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design), a global artscience collective engaged in creative prototyping of the future, and of Curiosity, a Manila-based design research consultancy. Across these contexts, I engage in collaborative projects that are speculative, grounded, and pluridisciplinary.