The industrial space on the Lower East Side was completely transformed. Raw concrete and exposed beams were saturated with vibrant color and pulsing lights, while deep house grooves thumped through the room. Orange bean bags dotted the floor, installations glowed in every corner, and the whole place felt alive with that unmistakable opening-night rush. Artists, filmmakers, designers, musicians, founders, and engineers descended for two days.
And the crowd was the act. All around the room, people were vibe coding ideas into real things you could hold, wear, and walk out the door with.
At Tigris Li's station, a spoken memory became a custom perfume you could take home. At Kyle McDonald's installation, a camera read faces and drew portraits through people's own hands. Robotic arms danced with light based on movement in Volvox Labs’ Astral Twin. New media artist Nate Mohler turned AI, memory, and the city into an installation of its own. Creators built interactive worlds, apps, and wild installations live, walking out with finished pieces they manifested during the day.
The stage kept pace with the floor. Spike Jonze sat down with Replit co-founder and CEO Amjad Masad.
Media artist Refik Anadol, co-founder of the AI art museum Dataland, talked with Replit president and head of AI Michele Catasta.
Girls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani took the stage with Replit co-founder and head of design Haya Odeh.
They took the main stage along with AR artist Paige Piskin, whose work has reached 400 billion impressions, GMUNK, the artist behind the Windows 10 wallpaper, and Emmy-winning motion designer Gryun Kim. Rhizome's 7x7program, brought Lucas Gelfond of A24 Labs, MIT-trained artist Karyn Nakamura, composer and DJ Debit, and creative technologist Saarim Zaman together, to make new work on the spot. And, the closing night featured Benji B, with a takeover of the stage turning it into a dance party.
The vibe was the medium, and the barrier between imagination and reality dropped to zero. The space ran on nonstop creation, pure play, and a curiosity of what can be imagined.
As Amjad said in his opening remarks, with AI we're witnessing the birth of a new medium. Every generation gets a few moments like this: photography, film, the internet. Technologies that begin as technical innovations and eventually become canvases for human expression. AI is one of those moments. That's why we created vibecon.
And last week’s event made it vibe-coding’s Coachella moment, intimate in the room and massive in what it unlocked.
If you were there, thank you for trying this experiment with us. We hope you left curious, excited and daydreaming a bit more. If you were not and want to learn more, videos of the sessions will be dropping soon and you can always start building at replit.com.
