X, M.Arch, MFA (formerly Santiago X) is an Indigenous futurist, multidisciplinary artist and architect specializing in land, architectural, and new media installation. His work illuminates the liminal space between the ancestral plane and our accelerating post-human world.

Now on view, GHOST TOUCH originated as visual essay for the Quarantine Times, created in 2020 during the height of Covid. The work was conceived as representation of the severed and fragmented virtual self, yearning for physical interaction and connection during a time of isolation. A prelude to exploring notions of a post-human world, the multi-layered striations of truth unveiled in the concept over time has manifested through a constellation of digital work over the past few years, including a gesture controlled video game created for the MCA Chicago, and a hovering holographic display of collections permanently installed at the Field Museum. The artist has evolved the original concept into a new Phygital (Physical x Digital) series, creating a new tactile fiber work paired with a limited non-fungible token. The synthetic representation of the original concept, permeates the work through every fiber, pondering the outcome of the digital self outlasting the physical, or vice versa.

X is a 3Arts Award Winner, a 2020 New City Top 50 Artist and the first Native American contributor to the Chicago Architecture Biennial. His work is exhibited and collected internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Ars Electronica, and the MCA Chicago. In 2020, X was commissioned by the U.S. State Department as lead artist of The American Arts Incubator Brazil, where he traveled to Brazil and conducted workshops culminating in a virtual reality exhibition, entitled PORTAL.

X, received a Bachelors of Environmental Design from the University of Colorado, a Masters of Architecture from the University of Southern California, and a Masters of Fine Arts Studio in Art and Technology from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is an enrolled citizen of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana (Koasati) and Indigenous CHamoru from the Island of Guam (Hacha’Maori).