STUDIO: Overview

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We perceive a world where artists and scientists collaborate directly with each other to create innovative interdisciplinary work and projects that have a positive impact on society, 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. Work carried out over the years by the STUDIO has typically engaged contemporary science and technology, through projects incorporating disciplines from cell biology to robotics to neuroscience to imaging technology. The generative process utilized by the STUDIO seeds artistic experimentation through artist residencies. Several seeded projects have evolved into major collaborative efforts by interdisciplinary teams.

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 role of artists is unique and evolving, frequently reflecting on current issues, challenging societal restrictions and mores, sometimes creating beauty and order, sometimes demonstrating the inherent chaos of contemporary life, addressing government decisions and asking philosophical questions. Artists have been visionaries, provocateurs, and iconoclasts ... sometimes praised for their ability to conceptualize the future, and other times chastised for breaking with the norm.

Artists in the 21st Century operate in a fascinating environment, unlike that of their predecessors. Advances in technology and science have made previously unimaginable concepts wholly possible. The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry serves as a home to artists whose practices encompass this developing interdisciplinary approach--artists who imagine the future, who question the direction of humanity, who are able to synthesize the constantly changing technology, viewpoints and culture into their artistic vision. Artists who are STUDIO fellows frequently are risk-takers--challenging commonly held beliefs. With the support of the STUDIO, these artists are able to pursue their vision, communicate with targeted audiences and impact the global community.

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.