Glowlab was an artist-run initiative founded in 2002 by Brooklyn-based artist and curator Christina Ray, alongside co-founder David Mandl, dedicated to experimental art and projects exploring cities, psychogeography, and urban experience. Initially launched as a web-based arts lab, Glowlab supported the visibility and expression of artists through exhibitions, street-based performances, site-specific interventions, interactive artworks, and community gatherings, often hosted in Ray’s Williamsburg loft and across New York’s urban landscape.
In 2003, Ray and Mandl co-founded Psy-Geo-Conflux (now the Conflux Festival), an annual New York City event described by The Village Voice as a “network of maverick artists and unorthodox urban investigators… making fresh, if underground, contributions to pedestrian life.” Glowlab expanded its programming with over a dozen solo and group exhibitions, artist talks, and performances, moving to Manhattan in 2008 with an exhibition space near SoHo. The initiative fostered a vibrant community of artists, thinkers, and technologists, including Wilfried Hou Je Bek, Swoon, Kate Armstrong, Steve Lambert, and Wooster Collective. In 2010, Christina Ray relaunched the platform under her own name, continuing to explore contemporary art, technology, and the psychology of the built environment.