About Scaling Intelligence

Generative media, enabled by models trained at internet-scale and proliferated by agentic systems, has opened an expansive toolkit for artists. At the same time, there is a prevailing narrative where AI inference equates to automation, homogenization, and slop. Against this notion, these artists harness the inherent creativity of inference to expand perspectives, create novel forms, and suggest new ways of sensing the world.

Each selected artist / culture maker / collective receives a cash stipend, ample materials budgets, and $20,000 worth of Modal cloud computing credits to use as they see fit. Over the coming weeks, the artists will develop their proposed artworks with support from our engineers, developers, producers, curators, and exhibition designers. The commissions will culminate in a 5-day exhibition at Gray Area, October 28 – November 1, 2026.

Modal builds infrastructure for compute, letting you run code anywhere, instantly, at scale. Gray Area has spent two decades exploring art and emerging technology, asking what it means to create responsibly and critically through times of rapid change. Together, we’re thrilled to offer support for creators whose practices reveal what intentional and imaginative engagement with AI can look like in the context of evolving digital and visual culture.