Digital Salvage

Incubating Artificial Intelligence For the Arts

AI on the Edge of Unknowing

Imagine a space where tradition fractures, bends, and reforms in the light of new technologies—a place where artists and innovators from northern and Indigenous communities merge with the uncanny potential of artificial intelligence. This isn’t just another incubator; it’s a space of rupture, redefinition, and radical exploration. In our 2025 Incubator for Digital Arts and Cultural Entrepreneurship, we’re not just creating art, we’re reprogramming the essence of creativity itself.

Here, AI-driven stories collapse into the fabric of community knowledge, transforming the landscape of virtual realities and climate futures. We’re shattering conventional approaches, deconstructing what it means to lead and create in the digital age. With the OpenAI Researcher Access Program fueling this shift, we’re not just nurturing artists—we’re igniting an ecosystem where risk-taking is encouraged, boundaries are blurred, and the stories we tell become the codes of a new world.

This program doesn’t just incubate ideas; it incubates futures. We’re hacking the arts sector by embedding the unknown into the known, weaving AI into the very fabric of organizational resilience, community action, and adaptive entrepreneurship. In doing so, we’re learning to live in a world of data and dreams, reimagining structures, expanding possibilities, and creating sustainable artistic landscapes that are as unpredictable as they are transformative.

We learned how to use audio visualizers using GPT 4 Turbo (GPT 4.5) and Javascript. It was lots of fun!
We learned how to use audio visualizers using GPT 4 Turbo (GPT 4.5) and Javascript. It was lots of fun!
Through OpenAI-powered tools and mentorship, we’re fostering creativity, leadership, and community-based research, helping artists innovate in the digital arts space.
Through OpenAI-powered tools and mentorship, we’re fostering creativity, leadership, and community-based research, helping artists innovate in the digital arts space.

A Project Made Possible thanks to support from the OpenAI Researcher Access Program

This project originally started as a grassroots initiative 2021-2022 with support from the Canada Council for the Arts Digital Greenhouse and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Building on this highly-successful pilot, in 2023 and 2024 our program worked towards changing the story of the arts, shifting from the conventional to the extraordinary, where creativity and technology merge in ways that break down barriers and open up endless possibilities. Integrating AI with art, we’re not just teaching artists how to use new tools—we’re empowering them to reimagine what art can be, how it’s made, and who gets to tell the stories. Since May 2024, support from the OpenAI Researcher Access Program has allowed us to dive deep into the intersection of art and AI, transforming our approach to artistic creation and community engagement.

The impact has been profound. Artists are now able to blend contemporary and traditional cultural arts with the latest in generative AI, giving birth to entirely new forms of expression. Whether it’s AI-powered storytelling, interactive installations, or AI-generated visuals that speak to their heritage, these artists are not just creating—they’re innovating, pushing the limits of their craft, and making their mark on the digital world in a way that’s uniquely their own. These works are powerful reflections of who they are, where they come from, and the future they envision for their communities.

GET INSPIRED!

Growing a Community of Care and Practice for the arts

We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to OpenAI for their incredible support through the OpenAI Researcher Access Program. This partnership has provided our program with the tools, resources, and expertise to explore new frontiers in arts innovation and creative leadership. With OpenAI’s transformative technology, we’ve been able to empower our artists to blend traditional knowledge with cutting-edge AI, unlocking new possibilities for cultural expression and storytelling. 

We also thank and appreciate the many partners, funders and supporters from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design Creative Entrepreneurship and Masters of Arts in Creative Leadership programs, Manitoba Agriculture, the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the University of Minnesota Duluth, the University of Victoria Community Based Research Lab, University of the Arctic, the Local Services Board of Melgund, Global Dignity Canada and the Manitoba Arts Council.