Part of the multi-institutional Mellon-funded Data Fluencies Project, the Data Fluencies Theatre Project & the Critical and Creative AI Studies (CCAIS) Lab at Emerson College investigate AI through critical and creative approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The Data Fluencies Theatre Project

The Data Fluencies Theatre Project is an artistic research project that mobilizes theatrical performance’s potential to build data fluencies grounded in and honoring embodied experience. The project brings together an interdisciplinary team to develop interdisciplinary artworks and co-create a participatory, devised, hybrid multimedia performance titled (Machine) Learning to Be that engages with algorithmic and AI systems. The performance’s hybrid format aims to expand access and engage the Internet as both a stage for performance and an object of investigation and critique. Both online and in person, audiences will explore alternative modes of engaging with our data-filled world in ways that open possibilities for more equitable futures alongside AI.

The Critical & Creative AI Studies Lab

The Critical and Creative AI Studies (CCAIS) Lab is an interdisciplinary research space that brings together artists, scholars, and artist-scholars to question and explore artificial intelligence through both critical inquiry and creative practice. Centering embodied knowledge and practice-based research, we examine AI’s dangers and possibilities and its societal impact while generating new forms of knowledge at the intersection of humanistic inquiry, artistic creation, critical thinking, and technological practice. Through our work, we aim to imagine and pursue more equitable futures in relation to AI and society. Building on the work of the Data Fluencies Theatre Project, the CCAIS Lab contributes to establishing the emerging field of Critical & Creative AI Studies.

The CCAIS Lab is supported by the Emerson College Research Hub.

image created with DALL-E-2 tool using prompt: "futuristic nature and machines theatre dancing"
[image created with DALL-E-2]