III. ABOUT
Studio
Family Affairs Studio is a performance and experience design practice navigating the spaces between spectacle and structure, intimacy and systems, collapse and transformation. Through performances, publications, creative ventures, and collaborative systems, we examine how people relate to purpose, care, power, technology, and one another.
We approach the stage and the studio as parallel laboratories: places to test ideas, build new architectures for gathering, and design experiences that open us up for vulnerability, complexity, and change.
Michael R. Speciàle (Founder + Director) is an artist, performer, writer, and systems architect whose practice navigates the intersection of embodied performance, cultural infrastructure, and operational design. His current works include Bottoming for Jesus, a touring solo performance examining queer spirituality and inherited shame; Love Letters from AI, a publication and lecture-performance exploring authorship and equity in machine learning; and Artificial Ecologies, an ongoing research practice investigating how human bodies, digital systems, and cultural structures interact.
Previously, Michael co-founded and was Executive Director of NAVEL in Los Angeles for seven years, supporting over 200 programs, residencies, and collaborative projects. His work spans solo performance, conceptual essays, cultural strategy, and the design of supportive infrastructures for artists and organizations. Through Family Affairs Studio and its sister practice Work◆Flow for Humans, he bridges artistic expression with the operational architectures that sustain it.