\Art, pronounced “backslash art”, awards a fellowship each year to a visiting artist to collaborate with Cornell Tech faculty and students on a significant work of art that engages bleeding edge digital research and technology. The fellowship offers sustained teamwork with creative and innovative technologists, enabling deep exploration of new artistic forms, expressions and features, and is intended to provoke novel opportunities for the artist’s work.
\Art lives at Cornell Tech, a digital-age, technology-forward graduate campus of Cornell University in New York City. \Art collides students, faculty, and artists, both on and off campus, providing grants and support for art works, tools and activities that use the latest emerging digital technologies.
\Art is currently accepting artist proposals for the 2023 \Art Fellowship.
Cornell University embraces diversity and seeks candidates who will contribute to a climate that supports students, faculty and staff of all identities and backgrounds. We strongly encourage individuals from underrepresented and/or marginalized identities to apply. Our inclusive community of scholars, students and staff impart an uncommon sense of larger purpose and contribute creative ideas to further the university’s mission of teaching, discovery and engagement.
As recipient of the \Art Fellowship, the artist is awarded:
Appointment. The artist receives a one-year Visiting Artist appointment at Cornell Tech, beginning September 2023 with the start of the 2023–24 academic year.
Honorarium. The artist receives a $20,000 stipend in recognition of their commitment to pursue a new collaborative work engaging contemporary technology.
Travel support. The artist receives up to $20,000 support to visit Cornell Tech in New York City, and is anticipated to spend no less than a month on campus over the course of the year. The artist can book a room at the Graduate Hotel on Cornell Tech’s campus or make other arrangements.
Project materials. \Art provides up to $10,000 support for project materials.
Studio space. The artist receives studio space for the academic year, located in the Tata Innovation Center on Cornell Tech’s campus.
Faculty home. The artist collaborates with a primary faculty member and their research group, based on the technology area of the artist’s proposed work (see Technology Areas below). When the artist is on campus, they can participate in group meetings, lunches, seminars, etc.
Student support. \Art provides up to $15,000 support for PhD and Masters students who are committed to working with the artist on the project. In addition to collaborating with the primary faculty member and their research group, students from across campus are invited to contribute to the project, given the software development and other needs of the work, and based on student applications.
Cornell Tech faculty are passionate about making an impact, both on campus and in the world beyond. They have a vision for the power of technology and are motivated by the opportunity to conduct innovative research and co-create with leading academics, entrepreneurs, industry experts, students – and artists!
The following are active technology areas of Cornell Tech research that the artist should consider when making a proposal. Collaborations in these inspiring areas can result in exceptional work that is not possible through the use of generally available software or software developers the artist could contract on their own.
Robotics and human computer interaction. The Interaction Design Research Lab develops and studies new ways to interact with automated systems such as robots, autonomous cars and interactive devices. We use a variety of technologies such as mixed reality simulation to prototype future systems. Wendy Ju. https://wendyju.com/
AI, sensors and health. People-Aware Computing group’s research focuses on closing the sensing to intervention loop in health technology solutions with a special emphasis on behavioral health. We work on passive sensing on symptoms as people live their lives and provide the right level of intervention at the right time and right intensity using AI and novel actuations. Tanzeem Choudhury. https://pbh.tech.cornell.edu/
Computational/digital fabrication. Fabrication technology is transforming from being a pure industry-driven technology towards a technology that can directly be used by the 99.9% of users who currently do not have access to this. This will open up a wide variety of new, diverse, and impactful applications of fabrication that stretch far beyond the mass-production or prototyping we have seen in the past. To this end, my lab is equipped with various 3D printers, laser cutters, wire benders, pick and place machines etc. Thijs Roumen. http://www.matteroftechlab.org
Wearable technology. It’s a clothing prototype that aims to provide stress-relief functionality or mental support for users’ self-care and therapy applications. The prototype has the potential to sense human psychological and physical signs. The data it collected can be put into a customized machine learning algorithm to generate corresponding sensory stimuli, like shape-changing behaviors, pulses, onto the users to help them relax or aware of their behavior. Angelique Taylor. https://www.angeliquemtaylor.com/
Computer vision. Our group works on 3D computer vision and graphics, primarily on the problem of building 3D models of the world from imagery. A primary goal is to reconstruct and digitize the 3D shape and appearance of real-world objects and scenes from 2D images, such as casual photos captured by a user, or collections of tourist photos from the Internet. Recently, we’ve been using neural rendering to recover production-ready 3D assets from user photos. Noah Snavely. http://snavely.io/
Ethics and privacy. Embedded within the progressive teaching mission of Cornell Tech, the Digital Life Initiative (DLI) was launched to analyze the societal tensions arising from existing and emergent digital technologies. Inspired by the core values of justice, democracy, privacy, responsibility, security, and freedom, DLI welcomes collaborative artistic projects that explore issues relating to ethics, policy, politics and quality of life within prevailing socio-technical systems. Helen Nissenbaum. https://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/
Collaborate with the primary faculty member and students. Meet with the team when on campus, and communicate with the team when off campus, to further develop the artist’s proposal, make plans, coordinate schedules, engage students, research and experiment, prototype technologies, and create the work. \Art staff can help coordinate these activities, including a kickoff meeting to share best practices for art & technology collaborations.
Show the work. Translating research to impact is central to Cornell Tech’s ethos. A goal of this collaboration is to make a significant work the artist is excited to show, that makes a difference to their practice, and that is a contribution to the field. \Art will help to show the work on Cornell Tech’s campus. In addition, the artist should arrange to show the work through their own channels, e.g., at an upcoming show, in response to a biennial invitation, etc. It may also be possible for \Art to help arrange or coordinate opportunities.
Engage with the campus. Over the course of the academic year, the artist is expected to participate in academic programs as reasonable and generally contribute to the art & culture of Cornell Tech’s campus. For example, the artist should give at least one talk on campus to present the results of the collaboration, could guest speak in a course or seminar series, could organize an artist panel on an emerging area of art, etc. \Art staff can help facilitate these opportunities.
Assist with documentation and communication. The artist will collaborate with \Art staff to document the work for the \Art website and pursue other channels to share and discuss the work.
Artist proposals are due by June 15, 2023. Artists should complete this application, including a proposal for work that engages one or more of the technology areas above.
The selection committee meets in June, 2023 to review applications and select finalists to interview.
Artist interviews are scheduled for June, 2023.
The \Art Fellowship recipient will be notified by June 30, 2023.