Harris Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, is pleased to appoint Stewart Copeland as Director of ARTSLab.
Harris Smith, Dean of Fine Arts, is pleased to appoint Assistant Professor of Art Stewart Skylar Copeland as Director of ARTSLab. ARTSLab is a transdisciplinary research facility and exhibition space serving UNM and the greater New Mexico community. Established in 2005, The UNM ARTSLab (Art, Research, Technology, and Science) is an award-winning interdisciplinary center for emerging media with an emphasis on immersive and interactive technology.
Prof. Copeland, a transdisciplinary artist with expertise in emergent media and artistic research, joined UNM as a professor in Experimental Art & Technology in January 2021. A former award-winning documentary filmmaker and musician, Copeland holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Digital + Media. He taught in the New Media Art department at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and in the Landscape Architecture department at RISD. He is the co-creator of VIS-A-THON, an NSF-funded art-based visualization program.
“For 20 years, ARTSLab has fostered innovative collaborations between art and technology, laying the groundwork for interdisciplinary research at UNM. Its new home at the Center for Collaborative Art & Technology feels like a natural culmination for a lab dedicated to supporting cross-disciplinary partnerships,” stated Copeland. “It is an honor and a privilege to build on that foundation and lead our research into the future.”
To honor the 20th anniversary of ARTSLab, UNM alumnus Jim Pinkerton, Computer Science 1995, and Principal Software Engineer at Google, established a Director’s Fund. “I’m pleased to support ARTSLab, and their new Director, Stewart Copeland, by establishing the Director’s Fund for ARTSLab,” Jim said. “It’s been exciting to attend the groundbreaking for CCAT and the new home for ARTSLab. I am happy that the future is bright for research and collaboration between Fine Arts and Computer Science at UNM. Here’s to twenty more years, and beyond.”
Join organizers Madrone Matishak and Sarah Bennett Davidson for an overview of the New Mexico Dance Hackathon, an initiative bringing together dance and new media artists to experiment and create innovative work across performance, installation, and film. This info session offers a look at past projects, insights into the creative process, and details on how to apply for this year’s program, culminating in final presentations at UNM ARTSLab this July.
ARTSLab is excited to continue its partnership with Unity in Spring 2026 with two free webinars and two free 10-hour courses, open to anyone in the state of New Mexico.
ARTSLab was recently featured in two articles highlighting its work at the intersection of art, technology, and innovation, including student-led projects and a NASA-funded VR initiative.