The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry supports atypical, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional research and educational projects at the intersections of arts, technology and culture.

The STUDIO is a center for experimental and interdisciplinary arts in the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University. Founded in 1989, the STUDIO connects artistic enterprises to academic disciplines across the Carnegie Mellon campus, to the community of Pittsburgh and beyond. The STUDIO’s mission is to support creation and exploration in the arts, especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts, sciences, technology, and the humanities, and impact local and global communities. It carries out this mission by:

• Providing artist residencies with stipends, commissions and facilities.
• Maintaining a work environment populated by a broad range of practitioners, including resident fellows, Carnegie Mellon faculty and students, and other associates.
• Facilitating access to human and technical resources at Carnegie Mellon and throughout the Pittsburgh community.
• Developing public venues for presenting innovative work.

All STUDIO projects are artist-generated. Fellows are selected by invitation and by application, using criteria based on furthering the STUDIO’s mission. Within the broad framework of the STUDIO, a locus of activity has emerged which includes work in three interrelated areas:

• Biology - the relationship of biological science and cognitive science with the human being.
• Ecology - the connection of humanity with the larger environment.
• Robotics - the relationship of the intelligent machine with the human being.

This activity takes advantage of the extensive technological and artistic capabilities of Carnegie Mellon. Of overall interest is the BIO-ECO-ROBO synergy. This framework is considered inclusive rather than exclusive.

The STUDIO exists in the zone between academia and the community. It provides individual artists access to the extraordinary resources and technology of the university, enables them to operate at the highest level of effectiveness and insures that their work impacts the most important issues of our time.

The Center for the Arts in Society is a collaborative effort of scholars and artists affiliated with the College of Fine Arts and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The Center explores the role of the arts in society - the place art impacts the workings of social power and in the processes of social change.  Simultaneously, The Center is dedicated to the exploration of tsociety's place in the arts - how diverse forms of social and political engagement have shaped the history of the arts, and might drive their transformation in the future. 

Participants in the Center engage in collaborative projects, producing innovative scholarship and artistic work that probes and transcends the boundary between the humanities and the arts.  They organize and take part in experimental community projects, using the arts as a forum for education and social engagement outside the university.  They contribute to undergraduate education through courses and extracurricular programs that integrate the arts and the humanities, involving and acquainting students with novel forms of research, artistic production, and community projects.

The Human Computer Interaction Institute's [HCII] mission is to understand and create technology that harmonizes with and improves human capabilities, goals, and social environments through interdisciplinary research and education in design, computer science, and behavioral and social sciences.

HCII research and educational programs span a full cycle of knowledge creation. The cycle includes research on how people work, play, and communicate within groups, organizations, and social structures. It includes the design, creation, and evaluation of technologies and tools to support human and social activities. Although the HCII is headquartered within the School of Computer Science, members of the community represent a broad spectrum of the campus including the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Tepper School of Business , College of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Software Engineering Institute, as well as the School of Computer Science.

The Entertainment Technology Center offers a 2-year professional interdisciplinary master's degree focused on entertainment technologies and how these technologies can be applied across a variety of fields. The concept behind both the Center and the Masters program is to have technologists and fine artists work together on projects that produce artifacts that are intended to entertain, inform, inspire, or otherwise affect an audience/guest/player/participant.

The ETC was founded in the fall of 1998 by Don Marinelli (Professor of Drama in the College of Fine Arts) and Randy Pausch (Professor of HCII in the School of Computer Science). It grants a Master's in Entertainment Technology (M.E.T.) that is conferred by both the College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science. The ETC-Global does not turn artists into technologists, nor technologists into artists. While some students will be able to achieve mastery in both areas, it is not our intent to have our students master the other skill set. Instead, we intend for a typical student in this program to enter with mastery or training in a specific area and spend his or her two years at Carnegie Mellon learning the vocabulary, values, and working patterns of the other culture. This learning will be evidenced by our graduate’s ability to work effectively with colleges who are experts in many fields. In bringing together different disciplines our degree program is focused on interdisciplinary teamwork and innovation.

The Robotics Institute conducts basic and applied research in robotics technologies relevant to industrial and societal tasks. Seeking to combine the practical and the theoretical, the Institute has diversified its efforts and approaches to robotics science while retaining its original goal of realizing the potential of the robotics field. Areas of interest researched at the Institute span 3D perception, acoustics, artificial intelligence, autonomous navigation, biological vision, data vizualization, game theory, to haptics, medical applications, microrobotics and more.

Established in 1979, the Intitute is currently comprised of 8 research centers:

• The Center for Integrated Manufacturing Decision Systems - an eclectic collection of people, projects, and labs involved in research in the fields of manufacturing; visualization and interfaces; intelligent coordination and logistics; intelligent sensors, measurement, and control; and artificial intelligence.

• The Center for the Foundations of Robotics (CFR) - encourages and facilitates fundamental robotics research, both theoretical and experimental. Participants are exploring basic issues in manipulation, mobile robotics, manufacturing, control, motion planning, graphics, and other topics. The CFR provides a venue for fundamental research collaboration through the Foundations Seminar and occasional micro-courses or tutorials.

• The Field Robotics Center (FRC) - explores and develops the use of mobile robots in field environments such as work sites and natural terrain, where the robots must safeguard themselves while performing non-repetitive tasks and objective sensing as well as self-navigation in random or dynamic environments. The Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon University is dedicated to the pursuit of this technology, and to push its limits into the next century, our imaginations, and beyond.

• Magnetic Levitation Haptic Consortium (MLHC) - Low-cost, high-fidelity haptic magnetic levitation haptic interface systems for use by a consortium of haptics rarchers in the United States

• Medical Robotics Technology Center (MRTC) - basic and applied research in computer-assisted surgery, smart medical and diagnostic tools, 2D and 3D medical image analysis and informatics, rehabilitative and prosthetic devices, assisted living and preventive healthcare equipment, and continuous healthcare process improvement. The MRT Center is harnessing and extending robotics and information technologies developed at Carnegie Mellon and elsewhere, and in collaboration with medical centers and biotechnology companies in the Pittsburgh region, quickly getting research results into clinical practice and commercial development.

• National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) - works closely with government and industry clients to develop and mature robotic technologies from concept to commercialization. A typical NREC project includes a rapid proof-of-concept demonstration followed by an in-depth development and testing phase that produces a robust prototype with intellectual property for licensing and commercialization. Throughout this process, NREC applies best practices for software development, system integration, and field testing.

• Quality of Life Technology Center (QoLT) - a unique partnership between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh that brings together a cross-disciplinary team of technologists, clinicians, industry partners, end users, and other stakeholders to create revolutionary technologies that will improve and sustain the quality of life for all people.

• Vision and Autonomous Systems Center (VASC) - a large research group within The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. VASC personnel consists of over 100 faculty, students, and staff, visitors, working in the areas of computer vision, autonomous navigation, virtual reality, intelligent manipulation, space robotics, and related fields.

Hunt Library is one of three libraries comprising the Carnegie Mellon University Libraries and supports research for the arts, humanities and business. The 4th floor houses the Arts and Special Collections department managed by librarians and staff who specialize in art, architecture, drama, design and music.

The arts collections include over 300 periodical titles; a wide selection of books and exhibition catalogs on art and art history; web resources, including online periodical and image databases; stock photo CDs and clip art; interactive CD ROMs; 135,000 slides, with a growing collection of digital images on art and architecture; audio works ranging from classical to jazz to contemporary, including audio art, experimental music, sound effects and movie sound tracks. Fourth-floor services include a color copier, printer and scanner. Video/DVD collections and viewing facilities are accessed on the lower level of Hunt. 

Library Collections:

• Architecture Archives
• Audio Collection
• Digitization Projects
• Posner Collection
• Special Collections
• University Archives
• Video Collection
• Visual Resources Collection

Arts Reference Desk
artsref@andrew.cmu.edu
(412) 268-7272

The Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University supports the creation, understanding and growth of contemporary art through exhibitions, projects, lectures, events and publications. The gallery aspires to engage diverse audiences and to create and strengthen communities through art and ideas. A unit of the College of Fine Arts, the three-story, 9,000 square foot space located in the Purnell Center building on campus, is free and open to the public.

During the last ten years, the Miller Gallery has exhibited work by Laylah Ali, Janine Antoni, The Art Guys, Michael Bevilacqua, Catherine Chalmers, Michael Ray Charles, Julia Christensen, Minerva Cuevas, Nicole Eisenman, Inka Essenhigh, Karen Finley, Rachel Harrison, Arturo Herrera, Tran T. Kim-Trang, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Larry Miller, Takashi Murakami, Yoshitomo Nara, Shirin Neshat, Open_Sailing, Christy Rupp, Ester Partegas, David Shrigley, Al Souza, subRosa, Sarah Sze, Terreform ONE, TermiteTV, Fred Tomaselli, Kara Walker, Olav Westphalen, Gail Wight, Sue Williams, The Yes Men, and many others.

Notable Carnegie Mellon College of Fine Arts alumni that have exhibited at the Miller Gallery include Dara Birnbaum, Mel Bochner, Jacob Ciocci (Paper Rad), Peter Coffin, John Currin, Cassandra C. Jones, Joyce Kozloff, Eileen Maxson, Shana Moulton, Rich Pell (Institute for Applied Autonomy, Center for PostNatural History), Blithe Riley, Fereshteh Toosi, Paul Vanouse, and Andy Warhol.

Founded in 2000 by Regina Gouger Miller, artist, educator, businesswoman, arts patron and alumna of Carnegie Mellon's School of Art.

The Masters of Arts Management [MAM] program combines rigorous finance, marketing and fundraising coursework with practical experience to prepare you to excel in a for-profit or non-profit arts environment.

Features & Benefits:

• Systems synthesis projects, internships and independent studies emphasize experiential learning.

• Courses are taught by experts in the arts management field, many of whom are still practitioners.

• Pair your arts management master's degree with a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law or with a graduate degree in Innovation and Organization of Culture and the Arts from the University of Bologna, Italy.

• Future Tenant, an art space in downtown Pittsburgh, serves as a working lab for the direct application of course concepts.

• Spend one semester at the University of Bologna in Italy to gain an understanding of cultural policy on an International scale.

Future Tenant provides a laboratory setting for artists, arts managers and audiences to explore the limits of the creative expression, presentation and interpretation of various art forms.

Future Tenant was founded in 2002 as a joint project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, CMU’s College of Fine Arts, and the Master of Arts Management program. It is managed by a team of arts management graduate students, and has over the past seven years presented the work of over a hundred emerging artists and performers.

Core programs include a guest curator program, annual CMU MFA exhibition, a monthly open mic night, a performance residency series, and several partnerships with local schools and colleges.