/// TURBO CHEAP ✨

WHAT WE DO +

Turbo Cheap is a project and exhibition hub in Downtown LA, pushing the boundaries of art, media, tech, AI, and hacker culture. Imagine 2600/Phrack magazine mashed up with Andy Warhol's The Factory.

We're incubating the cultural movements that will define how society relates to artificial intelligence and emergent technologies in this new era.

The artists experimenting in our space today will be the voices shaping public perception of AI and robotics and art and the future. Just as consumer turntables birthed hip-hop, affordable Casio keyboards created electronic music, and camcorders launched indie film, and home computers created hacker culture; all of them spanned global cultures and billion dollar industries; accessible AI tools, open source LLMs, robots, drones are spawning entirely new art forms and culture.

Turbo Cheap is ground zero for this cultural shift.

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WHO WE WORKED WITH +

RipSpace

Rhizome

404 Media

Anthropic

Hearthland

V Biennale

Bitforms Gallery

UCLA

CalArts

USC

Epoch

Visions 2030

Gray Area

Knashi

Vibe Code Jam

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COLLABORATORS +

SEASON ONE

Frank Indermuehle IV is a Los Angeles based multidisciplinary artist, experience designer, and technologist who began building for the internet in 1995 as a 12-year-old with a "Star Wars Cantina" GeoCities website. Combining art, code, and physical systems, he designs interactive experiences where humans, physical objects, and physical spaces become the interface. Through cameras, sensors, networks, light, and sound, he transforms spaces into something playable, responsive, and alive.

His practice bridges software and hardware — from full-stack development and network engineering to 3D printing, embedded systems, sound synthesis, and live event infrastructure. A systems thinker and hands-on builder, he brings three decades of cross-disciplinary innovation rooted in the early internet and built for the era of immersive media.

c+ is an audiovisual project, mapping the human condition through a network of images, sounds and textures. Woven into immersive works, these artifacts are amplified to explore the liminal space between nostalgia and catharsis, inviting others to process emotion in parallel.

Joe Garza is an L.A.-based journalist and creative marketing strategist working at the intersection of art, media, and underground culture. With experience covering film, music, and emerging creative scenes — along with hands-on work promoting multi-artist shows & events — he specializes in shaping bold cultural moments into compelling stories.

Nikki Ochoa is a poet and artist. She is an ancient baby from kudzu covered forests. She directs the experimental performance group Punitive Worm. She is the current Linda J Albertano Performance and Poetry Fellow at Beyond Baroque. Her interests are various and many, her credientials are impressive and thrilling. She is a licensed sailor and real estate agent. Her practice is rooted in making poetry that exists in the physical realm, community empowerment free from capitalist colonial narrative, bending time, and touching God.

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DUMMY +

John Threat is a hacker, futurist, global security issues advisor, lecturer (Kennedy Center, University of Chicago), artist (PS1/MoMA/Denniston Hill), writer/director, professor, and former bicycle messenger. He's been on the cover of Wired Magazine, featured on 60 Minutes, and pops up in everything from The New York Times to Ursula magazine. He consults with several futurist think tanks and founded turbo.cheap (fka Rip Space rip.space) – an art/tech/media/hacker project space in Los Angeles – the birth place of the Vibe Code Jam recently produced in collaboration with Rhizome and Anthropic in NYC.

johnthreat.com / @johnthreat

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