Across University Boulevard from the University of New Mexico main campus sits the UNM ARTSLab, a place that many students have not entered, but likely noticed due to the large mural painted on the outside of the building.
The ARTSLab provides technology and support to interdisciplinary research conducted within the College of Fine Arts, ARTSLab Director Stewart Skylar Copeland said.
“We try to support and maintain cutting-edge equipment and technology that researchers can use and incorporate in the research they’re doing, and we support it and provide access to multiple users to that equipment,” Copeland said.
Founded in 2005, the ARTSLab specializes in emerging media, especially technology that is immersive and interactive. The lab has changed a lot since its creation, Copeland said, originally starting with mostly planetarium-style dome projection, but now includes a focus on augmented reality and virtual reality technology alongside fabrication tech such as 3D printers.
“Keeping up with things is difficult and a lot of work. But it also is the point of the lab, and it creates a really interesting environment where you have a lot of that curiosity, (which) just has its own exciting energy that’s really generative,” Copeland said.
Recently, the ARTSLab launched its Community Immersive Technology Hub in an effort to make AR and VR technology more accessible to the University and broader Albuquerque community.
In 2024, UNM received congressionally-directed funding as part of a NASA grant to fund the CITH and launched its programs in the spring of 2025. Since the CITH’s creation, its equipment has been accessed over 200 times.
“The core concept behind it is that a lot of people are interested in learning AR and VR, but it can be really difficult to get your hands on this technology, so we’re trying to make it more accessible,” Copeland said.
The ARTSLab has technology outside of AR and VR, including the largest 3D printer on UNM’s campus, which can fabricate objects up to one-cubic-meter in size, and a Digital Jacquard Loom that allows for computer-controlled hand weaving.
“It’s kind of wild. It feels a little bit like we’re learning at the same time. And we found also that the University is learning at the same time,” Copeland said.
At the end of each spring, the ARTSLab sponsors the annual New Mexico Dance Hackathon, in which artists who specialize in technology and movement come together to create a new interdisciplinary performance.
“Dance Hackathon is a community-facing program where we take technologists and dancers, and they get together and work on a piece, and they develop their piece over the course of a semester, and then they premiere in the summer,” Copeland said.
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The ARTSLab also introduced a student-created AR and VR experience named Neon Forge at the Bands of Enchantment Music Festival, in which attendees created neon sculptures inside VR and later exported their creations as a 3D file.
In the fall of 2026, the ARTSLab will be moving into the new Center for Collaborative Arts and Technology, which is currently under construction. The new space will double the size of the exhibition space, expand the footprint of the fabrication lab and increase access to the ARTSLab for non-university users.
“Right now, (our) 3D printer causes issues because it can be loud, so you can’t run it at the same time. And if you’re printing anything on our big 3D printer, it takes usually about a week at least, to print something on it. And so in the new building, we have a dedicated sound-isolated (fabrication) lab so we can be a much more effective and efficient lab in a new space,” Copeland said.
Copeland said that if a student or professor wants to utilize the ARTSLab’s equipment to either do research or try to implement it into a course to simply “email us and we get going.”
“We really take accessibility really seriously, and it can be challenging when you’re coming for students or any researcher who’s working on a new technology. Sometimes you can get a bit anxious about asking too many questions — people get nervous,” Copeland said.
Jaden McKelvey-Francis is the editor-in-chief of the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at editorinchief@dailylobo.com or on X @jadenmckelvey
