Work with Us
Overview
UKAI Projects is a trusted partner for organizations looking to leverage technology in new and surprising ways.
From our inception in 2017, we have grown through commissions and co-productions with partners in both the arts and elsewhere. Migration (2020) led to the development of digital prototypes for 11 culturally specific performance organizations. UKAI also supported RISE VR, a residency for Black creators looking to expand into VR production and launched New Not Normal, a digital platform to address inequity in responses to COVID-19.
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Where we work:
Most technologies are deployed in service to the moral positions of capitalism (bigger and/or faster). We often blame the tools for failing to address other needs, but we demonstrate that artificial intelligence, augmented reality, additive manufacturing, and other emerging technologies can be turned over to other values and assumptions. We conduct ongoing research and then bring our discoveries to engagements with clients and in co-productions within the cultural sector and elsewhere.
Who we work with:
Our partners are organizations looking to leverage emerging technologies in new and surprising ways. As most new technologies prioritize efficiency and scale, our collaborators are often drawing on different values, assumptions, and/or ways of knowing the world.
Each engagement is different, but the following is true in many of our projects.
- Explicit prioritization of values that don’t scale easily (generosity, care, compassion, joy, access, wonder, etc.)
- Lack of experience or a shared vocabulary when communicating technological needs to engineers building digital solutions
- Challenges in identifying digital solutions appropriate to their specific context and needs
- Inability or unwillingness to use off-the-shelf solutions
- Projects that involve digital collaboration, assets, and tools that engage communities with low or no internet connectivity
- Limited resources to take part in digital research, prototyping, or fabrication
UKAI’s partners often lean on our ability to experiment, design, and implement creative projects that not only demonstrate an understanding of the possibilities of new digital tools, but also our strong leadership and research in interrogating and responding to technological, social, ecological, and other transformations.
UKAI’s work in artificial intelligence, for example, has generated international attention and rippled into other approaches to applying emerging technologies to important issues such as ecological regeneration and digital access and accessibility.
Mobile Studio:
Many of the communities and partners we serve operate outside of highly-connected, digital-ready contexts. To reflect this, UKAI has assembled hardware and software to deliver in traditionally under-served locales, and have secured the technical and creative expertise to implement concepts effectively.
UKAI is asked to bring projects to different locations (Jordan, Egypt, Germany, rural Quebec) and work from sites that are distributed without a central “studio space.” Our Mobile Studio is both functional and can be easily integrated into a wide range of interior and exterior spaces. The Mobile Studio extends well beyond working over the internet and utilizing digital conferencing and collaboration software. It serves to bring digital prototyping and fabrication capacities to new, and often under-served, locations and enable UKAI’s artists and collaborators to materialize their projects in proximity to the places where the final work will exist.
The Mobile Studio allows UKAI to build relationships with the sites on which we work such as land-based arts residencies; occupation of underused urban spaces; or embedding the studio within creative or technology spaces via partners such as Artscape Launchpad and Autodesk.
Let’s stay in touch!
Email: home@ukaiprojects.com
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