Artists Make Technology Lab – Doris Duke Foundation

The Dawn of a New Artistic Era: Doris Duke Foundation Launches Landmark Tech Lab

In a move poised to send reverberations through the performing arts world, the Doris Duke Foundation has announced the launch of the “Artists Make Technology Lab,” a groundbreaking initiative designed to catalyze the integration of cutting-edge technology into live performance. This ambitious program represents more than just a funding opportunity; it is a declaration of intent, a recognition that the future of theater, dance, and music is inextricably linked with the digital tools that are reshaping every other facet of modern life. By providing artists with the resources, mentorship, and collaborative space to experiment, the foundation is not simply funding projects but investing in a fundamental evolution of artistic practice itself.

The announcement arrives at a pivotal moment for the performing arts. Still navigating the long-term impacts of a global pandemic that forced a dramatic and often clumsy pivot to digital platforms, the sector is ripe for transformation. What began as a necessity—streaming performances, Zoom-based readings, and virtual galleries—has cracked open a world of possibility. Artists and institutions are now asking deeper questions: How can technology be more than a mere substitute for a live audience? How can it become an integral, expressive component of the art form, unlocking new narrative potential and creating experiences that are impossible to achieve on a traditional stage? The Artists Make Technology Lab aims to provide the first definitive answers to these questions, creating a dedicated space for the kind of high-risk, high-reward research and development that the commercial arts sector can rarely afford.

This initiative will bring together a cohort of visionary performing artists and creative technologists, fostering an environment where collaboration is paramount. The goal is not to have artists simply “use” technology, but to have them engage with it as a creative partner, to question its assumptions, and to bend it to their artistic will. From artificial intelligence and machine learning to virtual reality and interactive biosensors, the potential applications are as limitless as the human imagination. The Doris Duke Foundation’s investment signals a powerful belief that the next great leap forward in performance will be born from the fusion of human creativity and computational power, heralding a new era of storytelling that is more immersive, interactive, and deeply connected to the 21st-century human experience.

Bridging the Gap: Artistry Meets Algorithm in a New Creative Crucible

The core premise of the Artists Make Technology Lab is to dismantle the perceived barriers between the “art world” and the “tech world.” For too long, these disciplines have often operated in separate silos, with artists feeling intimidated by the technical jargon and engineers underestimating the nuanced demands of artistic expression. This lab seeks to create a shared language and a common ground, a fertile ecosystem where choreographers can collaborate with AI developers and playwrights can brainstorm with VR world-builders. It is a bold experiment in interdisciplinary synergy, founded on the belief that true innovation happens at the intersection of disparate fields.

A Legacy of Innovation: The Historical Marriage of Performance and Technology

While the tools may be new, the impulse to integrate technology into performance is as old as art itself. Every major technological shift has been accompanied by a period of artistic experimentation. The introduction of gas lighting in 19th-century theaters revolutionized stagecraft, allowing for unprecedented control over mood and focus, creating the dramatic effects that audiences came to expect. The advent of electricity and amplified sound transformed musical performance and enabled the birth of cinematic arts. In the 20th century, artists from the Bauhaus school experimented with mechanical ballets and light projections, while figures like Nam June Paik, the father of video art, turned the television set from a piece of furniture into a sculptor’s medium.

More recently, trailblazing companies like The Wooster Group have famously deconstructed classic texts using video monitors and live camera feeds, while choreographers like Merce Cunningham collaborated with computer programmers as early as the 1990s to generate chance-based movement sequences. Projects at institutions like the MIT Media Lab and Sundance’s New Frontier Lab have consistently pushed the boundaries of interactive and immersive storytelling. The Doris Duke Foundation’s initiative builds upon this rich history, recognizing that today’s technologies—AI, VR, AR, and biometric data—are simply the latest in a long line of tools that artists have co-opted, subverted, and transformed in their endless quest to reflect and interpret the human condition. What makes this moment unique is the exponential pace of technological change and the profound way these new tools can not only enhance a performance but actively participate in its creation.

Defining a New Paradigm: What Sets the Artists Make Technology Lab Apart

While art and technology grants have existed for years, the Artists Make Technology Lab distinguishes itself through several key philosophical and structural pillars. Firstly, its explicit focus is on the *process* rather than a predefined *product*. Many funding models require artists to pitch a fully-formed idea with a clear final outcome. This lab, in contrast, prioritizes exploration, experimentation, and even failure. It provides the freedom to ask “what if?” without the immediate pressure of delivering a finished, marketable show. This “R&D” approach is vital for genuine innovation, as it allows for the unexpected discoveries that often lead to the most profound breakthroughs.

Secondly, the initiative is built around a cohort-based, collaborative model. By bringing together a diverse group of artists and technologists for an extended period, the lab aims to cultivate a community of practice. This peer-to-peer learning environment is invaluable, as a challenge faced by a theater-maker might be unlocked by a solution discovered by a dance artist, and a tool developed for a musical composition could spark a new idea for an interactive installation. This cross-pollination is designed to build a resilient and interconnected network of innovators that will extend far beyond the lab’s duration.

Finally, the scale and prestige of the Doris Duke Foundation’s backing lend significant weight and visibility to this field of practice. By putting its name and resources behind this work, the foundation is making a powerful statement to the broader arts and culture sector: this is not a niche or fringe activity. The integration of technology in the performing arts is a central, essential, and urgent area of inquiry for the future of the field. This high-level endorsement can help legitimize experimental work, attract other funders, and encourage presenting institutions to take risks on technologically ambitious productions.

The Inaugual Cohort: A Glimpse into the Future of Performance

The success of any such initiative rests on the brilliance and curiosity of the people involved. The inaugural cohort of the Artists Make Technology Lab represents a carefully curated cross-section of the most forward-thinking creators working in the American performing arts today. These are artists who have already demonstrated a deep engagement with new forms and a willingness to push the boundaries of their respective disciplines. While their projects for the lab are still in nascent stages, their collective body of work offers a tantalizing preview of the kinds of a groundbreaking performance we can expect to emerge.

Spotlight on the Visionaries: The Artists and Companies Selected

The selected group comprises a diverse array of creators from theater, dance, music, and interdisciplinary performance. For instance, the cohort may include a choreographer known for using motion-capture technology to translate dancers’ movements into real-time digital avatars, exploring themes of identity and the virtual self. Their work in the lab could involve collaborating with an AI specialist to create a system where the digital avatar begins to develop its own emergent choreography, engaging the live dancer in an improvisational duet between human and machine.

Another participant might be a theater collective that creates immersive, site-specific work. Their focus in the lab could be on leveraging augmented reality (AR) to overlay digital layers of history, memory, and fiction onto a physical space. An audience member, viewing the performance through a smartphone or AR glasses, could see ghostly figures from the past interacting with live actors, or watch the architecture of the building transform to reflect different time periods, creating a deeply personal and multi-layered narrative experience.

A composer in the group could be exploring the potential of biometric data. By outfitting performers or even audience members with sensors that track heart rate, galvanic skin response, or brainwaves, they could create a generative musical score that responds in real-time to the emotional state of the room. The performance would become a bio-feedback loop, where the music influences the audience’s emotions, which in turn influences the music, creating a unique and unrepeatable event every single night.

A Spectrum of Disciplines: Fostering Creative Cross-Pollination

The true genius of the cohort model lies in the intentional mixing of these disciplines. The choreographer working with motion capture might share their findings on creating expressive digital bodies with the theater collective, who could adapt the technology for their AR ghosts. The composer working with biodata could collaborate with the choreographer to create a piece where the dancers’ physical exertion and emotional intensity directly generate the soundscape they are moving to.

This interdisciplinary dialogue is crucial because the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies are rarely confined to a single art form. Questions of liveness, audience agency, digital embodiment, and ethical AI are relevant to everyone. By creating a space where these questions can be debated and explored from the unique perspectives of a dancer, a musician, and a director, the lab fosters a holistic understanding of the field. The result is not just a collection of individual projects, but a shared body of knowledge and a collective vision for what technology-infused performance can be.

The Technology on the Table: More Than Just Gadgets

At the heart of the Artists Make Technology Lab is a powerful and rapidly evolving set of digital tools. However, the program’s philosophy is clear: technology is not the end goal, but a medium for expression, a new set of pigments for the artist’s palette. The focus is on moving beyond novelty and technical spectacle to achieve genuine artistic depth and resonance.

Exploring the Digital Toolkit for a New Generation of Storytelling

The lab will provide artists with access to and training in a range of cutting-edge technologies, each offering unique creative affordances:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML): Beyond the headlines about chatbots, AI offers incredible creative potential. Artists can train machine learning models on vast datasets—such as the complete works of Shakespeare or a choreographer’s entire movement vocabulary—to generate new text, music, or movement sequences. This can be used as a source of inspiration, an unpredictable collaborator, or even a co-performer on stage, raising profound questions about authorship and creativity.
• Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR): These technologies dissolve the traditional proscenium arch. VR can transport an audience of one into a completely realized digital world, allowing them to witness a story from inside it. AR, conversely, overlays digital information onto the real world, allowing for performances that blend the physical and the virtual in shared spaces.
• Interactive Sensors and Physical Computing: This broad category includes everything from motion-capture systems and depth-sensing cameras (like the Microsoft Kinect) to small, wearable biosensors. This technology allows the performance environment to become responsive and intelligent. A dancer’s gesture could trigger a change in the lighting, the volume of a sound could be controlled by an audience’s collective movement, or a character’s internal state could be visualized through real-time projections based on the actor’s heart rate.
• Generative Art and Real-Time Graphics: Using game engines like Unity or Unreal Engine, artists can create dynamic, ever-changing visual worlds that respond to live inputs. Instead of a static, pre-rendered video projection, a generative system can create visuals that are born in the moment, ensuring that no two performances are ever exactly the same.

Navigating the Frontier: Challenges and Ethical Considerations

Embracing these powerful tools also means confronting a host of new challenges and ethical dilemmas. The lab is designed to be a space where artists can grapple with these questions head-on. One of the primary concerns is the risk of technology overshadowing the human element. A dazzling technical display can easily become an empty spectacle if it isn’t grounded in a compelling story and authentic human emotion. The artists in the lab will be challenged to maintain this crucial balance, ensuring that technology serves the art, not the other way around.

Furthermore, issues of data privacy and ethics are paramount, especially when working with audience biometrics or interactive systems that collect user information. How can artists create participatory experiences that feel safe and respectful? When collaborating with an AI, who is the author of the work? How do we ensure these new forms of performance are accessible to people with disabilities or those without access to the latest consumer technology? The Artists Make Technology Lab is not just a space for technical problem-solving but also for critical ethical inquiry, helping to establish best practices for a field that is still in its infancy.

The Broader Impact: A Ripple Effect Through the Arts Ecosystem

The significance of the Artists Make Technology Lab extends far beyond the individual projects it will nurture. By investing in this high-level R&D, the Doris Duke Foundation is planting seeds that have the potential to grow and influence the entire performing arts ecosystem, from artist training and audience engagement to the very definition of what a performance can be.

Cultivating a New Skillset for the 21st-Century Artist

Traditionally, conservatory training for performing artists has focused on mastering a physical craft—the voice, the body, an instrument. While this remains essential, the lab recognizes that the artist of the future will also need a degree of technological literacy. This doesn’t mean every actor needs to be a coder, but it does mean they need to understand the language and potential of these new tools to be effective collaborators. The lab will produce a cohort of artists who can confidently lead interdisciplinary teams, articulate their creative vision to technical partners, and advocate for the thoughtful integration of technology in their work. The knowledge, case studies, and methodologies developed in the lab will likely be disseminated through workshops, publications, and academic partnerships, influencing how the next generation of artists is trained.

Rethinking the Audience Experience in an Interactive Age

Much of the work likely to emerge from the lab will challenge the traditional, passive role of the spectator. Interactive and immersive technologies inherently invite—and sometimes demand—audience participation. This marks a shift from a model of “presenting to” an audience to one of “creating with” an audience. Performances may become more personalized, more game-like, and more co-creative. This has profound implications for arts organizations, who will need to rethink everything from their marketing strategies (how do you describe an experience that is different for every person?) to their physical spaces (a traditional theater with fixed seating may not be suitable for an AR-driven, mobile performance). The lab’s experiments will serve as vital prototypes for the future of audience engagement.

The Crucial Role of Philanthropy in Artistic Research and Development

Perhaps the most significant long-term impact of the initiative is its powerful demonstration of the role of philanthropy in driving innovation. The commercial performing arts sector, with its reliance on ticket sales and subscription models, is often risk-averse. Experimental, technology-heavy work is expensive to produce, has a steep learning curve, and has no guaranteed audience. It represents a classic R&D problem, where the initial investment is high and the return is uncertain.

This is precisely where philanthropy can and should step in. Foundations like Doris Duke can provide the “risk capital” that allows the field to innovate and evolve. By funding the process of discovery, they are making a long-term investment in the health and relevance of the arts. The Artists Make Technology Lab is a model for how philanthropy can act as an R&D wing for the entire non-profit arts sector, ensuring that artists have the resources to explore the frontiers of their art forms and create the defining works of the 21st century.

Conclusion: Staging the Future, One Experiment at a Time

The launch of the Doris Duke Foundation’s Artists Make Technology Lab is more than a press release; it is a curtain rising on a new act. It represents a bold and optimistic vision for the future of live performance—a future that is not afraid of technology but embraces it as a powerful new collaborator in the timeless human endeavor of telling stories. This initiative acknowledges that the stage is no longer limited to a physical platform but can extend into virtual worlds, augmented realities, and the very biometric data of its audience.

The journey ahead will undoubtedly be filled with challenges, technical glitches, and creative dead-ends. But within this crucible of experimentation lies the promise of something truly new: performances that are more dynamic, more responsive, and more deeply intertwined with the fabric of our increasingly digital lives. The artists selected for this lab are not just creators; they are explorers, charting a new territory where the artist’s soul and the silicon chip can meet to create unimagined beauty and profound meaning. The work that emerges will not only redefine the boundaries of theater, dance, and music but will also fundamentally reshape our understanding of what it means to share a story, an emotion, and an experience in the 21st century and beyond.