Bio
Sal Moreno (he/him) is a Chicago-based creative technologist, artist, and performer whose work spans creative computation, sound, performance, and new media. Through free-drumming and emerging technology, Sal deconstructs the regimented traditions of marching band, challenging its origins in Western military and music ideologies while exploring his own Chicano heritage. With a strong fluency in game engines, motion capture, and coding languages, he crafts animations, visual effects, and generative sounds that supports this experimentation. Sal’s work has been featured at Ars Electronica, EXPO Chicago, Mana Contemporary, and on virtual platforms. Sal currently teaches at UC Irvine, UC Santa Cruz, and SAIC. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the New Media Caucus.
Most recently, he is the founder of Free Flow Creative, an experiential studio focusing on developing immersive and interactive projects.
Artist Statement
I am a Chicano artist, creative technologist, and educator specializing in new media, sound, performance, and motion capture. I use these tools to explore my Mexican American heritage, cultural displacement, and the ways identity is shaped through technology, ritual, and embodied interaction.
My practice is currently undergoing a major turning point. Previously, I focused on free-drumming as a way to resist regimented rhythm systems and explore improvisation, discipline, and physicality. More recently, I have begun shifting toward collaborative and public-facing work that engages my Chicano identity through experimental media. Motion capture plays an increasingly central role in this shift, allowing my body, voice, and gestures to generate sound, visuals, and influence digital environments in real time.
As a fourth-generation Mexican-American, I occupy a space shaped by proximity and distance. My family and I were born close to Mexico, yet far removed from our heritage, and that tension has influenced how I move through the world. I have often been met with the question, “You're Mexican and don't speak Spanish?!” a comment that flattens a much more complicated story.
Through my work, I aim to create space for others navigating similar experiences of cultural in-betweenness, using experimental media as tools to reclaim, reinterpret, and celebrate Mexican-American identity while honoring tradition and pushing it forward.
Contact
Interested in collaborating? Fill out the form and we'll be in touch!