CCAM is an artist-run platform programming, performing, and producing at the nexus of art, technology, and contemporary thought.

CCAM’s primary goal is building an accessible community for the development and sharing of abstract ideas and forms of technical know-how, know-when, and know-why historically siloed in academia. Reciprocally, CCAM aims to hybridize the art, technology, and research cultures it borrows from the academy by drawing on and inviting in queer, anti-racist, and decolonial perspectives. By intentionally developing this community outside of the academy, CCAM seeks to break down barriers to access for engaging in art, technology, and surrounding critical theory.

CCAM serves artists in our community by offering donation-based seminars, talks, and working groups investigating the liberatory potentials of different theories of art, science, and technology. In its workshop programming and future residency offerings, CCAM takes a para-academic approach that prioritizes transdisciplinary exchange between residents, mentors, and guests. CCAM’s focus on technology aims to provide artists with diverse and experimental approaches to expressive interactive media art creation. We build community through collaborative learning workshops and working groups focused on both bleeding-edge toolkits as well as DIY and open-source platforms for sound and video instrument composition.

We regularly partner with organizations and artist-run platforms in Chicago and beyond. Some of them include: TriTriangle, The Fythyr Institute, Dispersion Lab, NewINC, The Neu Lithium, Drone/Ambient/Noise, Watershed Art and Ecology, Public Works, Onion City Film Festival, and the Performance Technology Research Group at SAIC.

CCAM is supported by the Hyde Park Arts Center Artist Run Chicago (ARC) program and the Terra Foundation's Art Design Chicago program.