About Kris Krüg

Portrait of Kris Krüg

About

Techartist. Quasi-sage. Cyberpunk anti-hero from the future.

I’m Kris Krüg. I make photographs, build software, and bring people together to figure out what the hell we’re going to do with all this technology.

Contact Kris See the work

I’ve been building websites and communities since 1995. That’s long enough to fall in love with technology, get pissed off at what we do with it, and keep making things anyway.

My work has taken me from Bryght, Drupal and the Grateful Dead’s website to documentary photography, creative AI research and public policy. My photographs have appeared in National Geographic, Rolling Stone and The Guardian. I’ve spent a lot of my life moving between people who don’t usually find themselves in the same room.

Photography taught me how to pay attention when I get there. You can have the best equipment in the world and still miss the person in front of you. A camera can get you into a room. It doesn’t entitle you to anyone’s story. The relationship matters. You have to earn the picture.

Still making things. Keeping the opinions honest.

Today I’m Executive Director of BC + AI Ecosystem Association, founder of Vancouver AI, and founder and Festival Director of Futureproof Festival of AI. From Vancouver, we’re bringing artists, researchers, educators, entrepreneurs and skeptics together to make things, disagree productively, and discover what becomes possible when they take each other seriously.

A lot of people make that work possible. They teach, host, volunteer, document, ask awkward questions, and keep showing up. I want them to have the room and the authority to make it their own.

With Martin Lopatka and Sarah Downey, I co-teach the Responsible AI Professional program, working through real decisions and governance tools people can use. Through our fellowship with Internet Archive Canada, we’re supporting builders exploring Canada’s public record.

I’ve co-authored research on Vancouver’s grassroots AI community with Patrick Pennefather and David Gaertner. BC + AI has brought community recommendations on AI accountability into a federal consultation. I still make the films and build the software. It helps keep the opinions honest.

I’m fascinated by what these tools make possible. I’m also paying attention to whose work trained them, who gets paid, what they consume, and who answers when something goes wrong. Those questions belong in the room while we’re building. So do the people who will live with the consequences.

I want people to become more themselves with these tools. To make the film they’ve been carrying around in their head. Build something useful for their neighbours. Find their way into a conversation they were told was too technical for them. And have enough understanding to say, “Actually, we’re not doing that.”

My ambition has grown along with the work. I want to help shape the institutions and public decisions that determine how we live with technology. Build organizations that can outlast my own energy. Share access, make room for other people to lead, and take responsibility for more than my own projects.

I’m looking for people whose imagination stretches mine, whose judgment I trust, and who will call bullshit when it’s needed. People who can make extraordinary things and care about what happens after the applause.

That’s the company I want to keep.

If you’re making something worth caring about, or wrestling with a question you can’t leave alone, tell me what you’re working on.

The rooms I am in now