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metaLAB (at) Harvard
Project

metaLAB (at) Harvard

An idea foundry, knowledge-design lab, and production studio, metaLAB (at) Harvard explores the digital arts and humanities through research, teaching, publications, and exhibitions. Our projects infuse traditional modes of academic inquiry with an enterprising spirit of hacking, making, and creative research. We believe that some of the key research challenges and opportunities of the new millennium transcend divisions between the arts, sciences, and humanities; between the academy, industry, and the public sphere; between theoretical and applied knowledge.

A community of scholars, technologists, artists, and designers based at the Berkman Klein Center, metaLAB also has ties to Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Design, with partners across the university and in the world at large. Its German partner, metaLAB (at) FU Berlin opened at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2022. The metaLAB team includes:

Jeffrey Schnapp, Founder, Faculty Director, & Principal

Sarah Newman, Director of Art and Education & Principal

Kim Albrecht, Data Visualization Designer & Principal

Lins Derry, Researcher & Principal

Magda Romanska, Associate Prof. of Performing Arts at Emerson College, BKC Faculty Associate, & Principal

Kara Oehler, Researcher & Principal

Read more about the full team here.

 


Our Work 27

Feb 14, 2024 @ 12:00 PM

AI Pedagogy Workshop

For educators and others who want to meet this moment critically and creatively

Are you an educator? Are you feeling challenged, or inspired, or overwhelmed by this moment in AI? Join us...

New AI toolkit for educators
Nov 16, 2023

Harvard's metaLAB Introduces AI Pedagogy Project

New dynamic resource aimed at guiding educators navigating AI in their teaching.

CAMBRIDGE, MA, Nov 16, 2023 — Harvard's metaLAB, part of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, announces the

Nov 8, 2023 @ 11:00 AM

mL Talks: Autographic Design - the matter of data

Virtual Book preview & Conversation with Dietmar Offenhuber & Lev Manovich

Join us for a conversation with Dietmar Offenhuber and Lev Manovich about Offenhuber’s forthcoming book Autographic Design - The Matter of Data in a Self-Inscribing World...

Mar 6, 2023

Apply now for the BKC Summer 2023 Internship Program

Applications due by Monday, March 27 at 5:00pm ET.

BKC summer interns are substantively involved in BKC's projects, programs, and other efforts...

Oct 13, 2022

Research sprint examines challenges of navigating digital identity amid crises

GLOBAL COHORT OF EARLY-CAREER SCHOLARS AND PRACTITIONERS EXPLORES THE ETHICAL AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONSIDERATIONS OF DIGITAL IDENTITY IN TIMES OF CRISIS

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, in collaboration with metaLAB (at) Harvard, the Edgelands Institute, and AccessNow, is welcoming 34 early-career scholars and…

May 17, 2022 @ 10:00 AM

Living by Protocol

presented by metaLAB (at) Harvard & FU Berlin

May 17-July 3. Living by Protocol queries the reflections of artists on, with, and by social media. The nine grid structured monitors within Harvard Art Museums' Lightbox Gallery…

May 18, 2021

2021 Virtual Creative Spring Workshops

metaLAB presents workshops covering wide ranging topics including artificial intelligence, time, and online communication

metaLAB presents workshops covering wide ranging topics including artificial intelligence, time, and online communication, through the lenses of technology, psychology, and…

News
Dec 4, 2020

Imagine a world in which AI is in your home, at work, everywhere

AI+Art project prompts us to envision how the technology will change our lives

metaLAB
Jun 15, 2020

metaLAB Releases “Their Names” Visualization

Project visualizes the names of over 28,000 fatal encounters with police

Project visualizes the names of over 28,000 fatal encounters with police

News
Mar 29, 2019

ARTificial Intelligence: The Laughing Room

An artificially intelligent sitcom

The Laughing Room is an artificially intelligent room and interactive art installation that plays a laugh track whenever the participants say something that the room’s algorithm…

Event
Mar 1, 2019 @ 1:00 PM

Alterspace

libraries, digital placemaking, and emancipatory design

An immersive library experience that gives visitors control over light, color, sound, and space to create the ideal environment for whatever brings them through the library's…

Event
Feb 4, 2019 @ 6:30 PM

Is A.I Laughing at us?

A conversation with Jessica Fjeld, Jon Orwant, and Nikhil Dharmaraj

Watch video from this conversation Join a spirited and accessible discussion of…

News
Nov 19, 2018

Funny or creepy? MetaLab researcher creates sitcom-like experience

‘Laughing Room,’ metaLab researcher’s installation, turns a visit to the library into a sitcom-like experience — only deeper

Medium
Sep 28, 2018

A Thicket of Questions

On Matthew Battles’s Earth Measurer

How does nonliving artificial-intelligence technology relate to the precarious state of life on earth?

News
Sep 25, 2018

Where did this computer come from?

Dwutygodnik.com interviewed Sarah Newman, a Creative Researcher at metaLAB at Harvard, and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center, about her project “The Future of Secrets,” an…

News
Sep 12, 2018

‘Error’ brings opportunity to metaLAB

Exploring metaLAB's participation at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria.

Harvard Gazette
Aug 3, 2018

metaLAB unveils Curricle

On the eve of Fall term 2018, metaLAB presents a new visual tool for curriculum search and discovery.

About three years ago, metaLAB at Harvard took up the challenge to develop a digital tool that would revolutionize how students, faculty, and administrators engage with the…

Medium
Jul 25, 2018

Shiny Objects

AI + Art workshop at Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society

What does it mean to be human if most of our interactions are with non-human intelligences?

Event
Mar 6, 2018 @ 5:30 PM

metaLAB + friends openLAB

Please join us for metaLAB’s 2018 openLAB, showcasing work by metaLAB and friends.

Event
Feb 13, 2018 @ 12:00 PM

Media Migration, Signage, and Smoked Fish

the Library Consortium as Studio, Platform, and Metacommunity

In this talk, Nate will give an overview of the programs at METRO/599, talk about the challenges associated with this organizational recalibration, seek input and ideas from the…

Jan 22, 2018

The Cyberlaw Guide to Protest Art

In this guide, we'll cover the main areas of law that are implicated by protest art online. We’ll give you the background on what the law is and explain why it works the way it…

Event
Jan 19, 2018 @ 6:00 PM

MACHINE EXPERIENCE II

Art Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence

A showcase of works by metaLAB artists exploring the emotional effects of algorithms, the uncanny experiences of sensor-enabled computers, and what intelligent machines might…

Event
Nov 7, 2017 @ 12:00 PM

Study Card to Playlist: the Social Life of the Course Catalog

Curricle with Professor Jeffrey Schnapp, metaLAB Harvard

Visualized, annotated, connected: what should the course catalog look like in the 21st century? In this ​participatory lunch talk, members of metaLAB's Curricle team will share…

Event
Aug 7, 2017 @ 10:00 AM

MACHINE EXPERIENCE

metaLAB AI Art Exhibition, Lightbox Gallery, Harvard Art Museums

metaLAB exhibits five new artistic projects playfully and critically engaging different aspects of Artificial Intelligence at Harvard Art Museum's Lightbox Gallery from August 8…

Event
Sep 24, 2013 @ 12:30 PM

Curated by the Crowd: collections, data, and platforms for participation in museums and other institutions

hosted by metaLAB's Jeffrey Schnapp, Matthew Battles and Pablo Barría Urenda

Curarium is a collection of collections, an “animated archive,” designed to serve as a model for crowdsourcing annotation, curation, and augmentation of works within and beyond…

May 15, 2012 @ 12:30 PM

Going Feral on the Net: the Qualities of Survival in a Wild, Wired World

Matthew Battles, Managing Editor and Curatorial Practice Fellow at metaLAB (at) Harvard

How do we balance the empowering possibilities of the networked public sphere with the dark, unsettling, and even dangerous energies of cyberspace? Matthew Battles blends a deep…

Event
Apr 3, 2012 @ 12:30 PM

The Growth and Decay of Shared Knowledge

Dennis Tenen, fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society

In this talk, Dennis will discuss our intuitions about knowledge domains and the methods by which such intuitions could be modeled empirically. Along the way, we will have the…


Community 11

Harvard Law Today

Exhibition in Kansas centers voices of formerly incarcerated women

“How the Light Gets In,” created by Sarah Newman and metaLAB (at) Harvard, in collaboration with the KU Center for Digital Inclusion.

“Freedom is the most beautiful thing life has to offer.” “I am not a criminal I was a drug addict.” “Beautiful things are never perfect.” Those…

Nov 29, 2022
Harvard Law Today

‘Living by Protocol’ meditates on the impact of social media and its future

Berkman affiliates preview ‘Living by Protocol,’ the exhibition by metaLAB that runs through July 3 at Harvard Art Museums

Jun 7, 2022
metaLAB (at) Harvard

#MeToo Anti-Network

A metaLAB (at) Harvard project illustrates how a movement such as #MeToo is constituted by masses of unobserved tweets.

Nov 23, 2021
The Harvard Gazette

Fatal encounters with police

‘Their Names’ project gathers the stories of 28,000 people, from Jan. 1, 2000, to George Floyd

Jun 26, 2020
Harvard Magazine

Curricle, the Course Catalog Matrix

Researchers from metaLAB develop a new tool for curricular exploration at Harvard

Jul 17, 2019
Information is Beautiful

Artificial Senses

"Artificial Senses," a piece by Kim Albrecht of the metaLAB project, is honored as one of the best visualizations of the year at the 2018 Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards.

Dec 23, 2018
Hollywood Reporter

Fox Family Picks Up 'Paper Lanterns' With Humorist Jonny Sun Writing

Humorist, illustrator, and BKC affiliate Jonny Sun is creating Paper Lanterns, a live-action/animation hybrid feature that just got picked up by Fox Family.

Nov 27, 2018
Boston Magazine

Jonny Sun's New Art Project in Cambridge Is a Sitcom, Starring You

The Twitter celebrity's Laughing Room features a laugh track powered by artificial intelligence

Nov 9, 2018
Boston Globe

Want to be on a sitcom? Illustrator Jonny Sun is opening an interactive art exhibit in Cambridge

An immersive project that examines the intersection of art, technology, and privacy

Nov 8, 2018
Medium

Time and the Selva Oscura

A meditation on the temporality of forests

Jun 25, 2018

Congratulations, Zeega!

a winner of the 2011 Knight News Challenge

The Berkman Center is pleased to share some terrific news from our metaLAB (at) Harvard colleagues: Zeega is a winner of the 2011 Knight News Challenge! Zeega is an open-source…

Jun 24, 2011

People 05

Point of Contact

Team

Kim Albrecht

Faculty Associate

Dario Rodighiero

Faculty Associate