CalArts, Chanel Launch Center for Artists and Tech With AI Focus

Chanel is funding a new Chanel Center for Artists and Technology at the California Institute of the Arts, which is slated to begin work this fall.

The Center, at the Santa Clarita, Calif. campus, is aimed at providing CalArts students, faculty, and visiting fellows across the creative disciplines access to leading tech for research, experimentation and education, with a focus on AI/ machine learning and digital imaging. It also aims to link museums, universities, and technology companies. A search for an executive director is currently underway.

The Chanel Culture Fund will provide resources for equipment; visiting experts, artists, and technologists-in-residence; graduate fellowships; and future-focused research and creation. The Center also aims to host an annual forum addressing artists’ engagement with emerging technologies.

“The Chanel Center for Artists and Technology at CalArts makes real an endeavor that’s long been in our dreams,” said CalArts president Ravi S. Rajan. “At CalArts, we recognize that throughout history and across cultures, it’s the artists who consistently lead us toward a more imaginative, compelling, and just future. I’m grateful to the Chanel Culture Fund for embracing our shared vision of centering artists at the forefront of shaping the technologies that will inform our collective lives and society. It’s in CalArts’ DNA to create game-changing initiatives — since its founding by Walt and Roy Disney, CalArts’ evolution has been inseparable from that of the industries it influences. Through the Chanel Center for Artists and Technology, CalArts will continue this legacy by helping define the future of technology in the arts.”

Added Yana Peel, Chanel’s global head of arts and culture, “Artists have always shown us what’s next through the constant evolution of new ideas. In the ever-changing age of AI, the Chanel Center for Artists and Technology will enable and encourage creatives across disciplines to harness that innovation — to take human imagination further than ever before.”