Brown Arts Institute (BAI), in partnership with the Associate Provost for Artificial Intelligence, announces a new initiative designed to support artistic projects that critically engage with artificial intelligence (AI) via the Beyond Artificial Intelligence BAI Grant, lovingly referred to going forward as the BAI BAI Grant.

Brown Arts Institute catalyzes the pursuit of audacious interdisciplinary creative research and practice. We do so by offering unparalleled resources, cutting-edge spaces, and exceptional expertise to students, scholars, and artists.

We make weird art happen.

The BAI BAI Grant will award up to four individual student or faculty projects, whose development and artistic output move past the surface topics of AI to present interesting, unexpected, and useful frameworks and meta-commentaries that help us to think through the role AI is playing in our realities. More than a financial award, this grant initiative is an invitation into the BAI community with a commitment of institutional support for creative research over the grant’s inaugural 2027–28 academic year and beyond. 

We believe that artistic practice is a form of knowledge production that asks questions that other methodologies cannot, facilitating our discovery of what we think by making things. The ideal candidate embraces this ethos, specifically within the context of AI, learning about this technology through the act of creating with it or about it. As such, this initiative will support research-driven artistic experimentation that treats AI as a site of critical inquiry rather than a tool of expediency. 

Scholars have shown that the systems we build encode the values, biases, and power structures of the people and institutions that make them (ex. Sasha Costanza-Chock's Design Justice, Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein's Data Feminism, and the writing of Ruha Benjamin). 

Our stance is that the most compelling work in this space does not just use AI to make something new; it uses the creative process to illuminate what these systems are, what they assume, what they make possible or foreclose. 

Our definition of AI is wide-ranging: generative models, machine learning, algorithmic making, robotics, computational systems, surveillance technologies, etc. Likewise, we understand creative practice prismatically as performance, text, media, embodiment, objects, sound, bodies, etc. Given how broad our interests are in this intersection of AI and creative practice, we seek proposals with a clear and honed artistic vision that will lead to projects with a clearly articulated trajectory. 

This grant is first and foremost designed to be a cohort model in which the recipients have the opportunity to meet, engage, and support each other’s research. There will be gatherings organized as check-ins to share progress, ask for feedback, and otherwise be in community with each other, as well as with the rest of the Brown Arts Institute (BAI).

Our hope is for members of the cohort to develop organic relationships with the different areas of the BAI that make sense for their research. There will be opportunities throughout the year to participate in a variety of different BAI programs as well as interact with our staff and visiting artists. Recipients will also have access to a variety of different spaces, equipment, and training via the BAI’s Creative Arts and Technology Spaces (CATS). 

Lastly, each proposal selected will receive financial funding of either $5,000 for students, or $10,000 for graduate students, faculty and fellows to support a research-driven artistic project over the course of AY 27–28. Access to that funding, via disbursement or departmental purchasing, will begin in Fall 2027.

ufunds.brown.edu is Brown University’s platform for the administration of grants and awards. Using UFunds, submit a letter of intent that includes a project description, your methodology and approach to AI, your documentation strategy and intended audience, team composition (if applicable), and budget. Selected applicants will be invited with instructions to submit full proposals and subsequently interview with the selection committee.

Undergraduate student research projects will be awarded $5,000 in a single disbursement of funds in the beginning of Fall 2027. If a team of undergraduates is applying, one student among them must be identified as the lead investigator of the project, and that individual will receive the full disbursement. Potential applicants should consult an advisor in Student Financial Services so that they fully understand how this grant, and grants in general, can affect their fiscal responsibilities (i.e. scholarship eligibility, FAFSA, taxes, etc.).

All other eligible applicants will be required to obtain a pledge of financial stewardship from their home department for their project prior to submitting their initial application. In this model, which is quite common at Brown, recipients of the grant will make all purchases related to their projects through their home departments for AY27-28. The BAI BAI Grant will then refund the department after the project and all spending has concluded. If a team is applying, one member of the team among them must be identified as the lead investigator and it is their home department that must provide approval and stewardship. An applicants can secure said departmental approval by having their Chair and Department Administrator sign the Beyond Artificial Intelligence Departmental Support Pledge, a pre-formatted letter, which is also available within the U-Funds application. Any questions department representatives have about their potential responsibility can be directed to baigrants@brown.edu. BAI may manage some project expenses, depending on the financial structure and intended intervention of the project. Award budget may be subject to revisions pending ancillary costs of facilities and other BAI resources.