Director, Moving Image

Summary

Reporting directly to the Executive Director of CCAT, the Director of Moving Image steers CCAT’s moving image research agenda, bringing scholarly depth and a broad, interdisciplinary command of the field: from expanded cinema and video art to immersive media, VR/AR, projection, and emerging screen-based practices. This is a foundational role responsible for grounding CCAT’s moving image work within contemporary art discourse and positioning the lab’s output in relation to the larger cultural and institutional landscape. This role requires a unique combination of scholarly depth, hands-on production expertise, and comfort navigating a complex and prestigious art education environment.

Where the Machine Learning Director ensures technical rigor, the Moving Image Director ensures that the questions CCAT asks extend beyond technical application into the domain of meaning, form, and cultural consequence. Together, they constitute CCAT’s core research leadership and its two-pillared research foundation.

This role requires someone who can define research questions, not just answer them; who brings the same critical rigor to a screen-based installation as to an academic argument, and who understands that the most interesting work at the intersection of art and technology is rarely the most obvious.

This is a grant-funded position. Continued employment is contingent upon the availability of funding from the CHANEL Culture Fund. There is no guarantee of continued employment beyond the period for which funding has been secured.

Essential Job Functions

• Research Agenda and Lab Direction
  
  

The Director is the primary intellectual steward of CCAT’s moving image research function. Responsibilities include:

• Define and evolve CCAT’s moving image research agenda in alignment with the Center’s annual priorities and institutional thesis.
• Lead the lab’s research and development workflows and standards: from initial concept and experimentation through to production-ready technical delivery.
• Define technical readiness requirements for installs, screenings, demos, and public presentations produced under CCAT’s name.
• Conduct feasibility and risk review for proposed projects where moving image systems, installs, or pipelines are central to program viability.
• Maintain active engagement with contemporary art discourse, including exhibition practice, institutional critique, and emerging scholarship, and bring that perspective actively into CCAT’s program planning.
• Sustain fluency across the field: expanded cinema, video art, immersive media, VR/AR, projection art, and next-generation screen-based forms.
• Interdisciplinary Program Collaboration
  
  

CCAT’s program is developed through interdisciplinary co-authorship. The Moving Image Director is a full member of the Program Working Group and contributes both cultural and technical perspectives across all stages of program development.

• Participate in Working Group co-development of program concepts, research thesis, and curatorial framing.
• Bridge artistic intent and technical feasibility: surface what the work needs, what the lab can support, and where those two things require negotiation.
• Partner with the Director of Machine Learning, Senior Curator, and ED to integrate moving image systems into CCAT’s program outputs.
• Serve as a required input on all projects where moving image systems, installs, or pipelines affect program viability.
  
  

Note on Structure: the Director of Moving Image serves as a core member of CCAT’s Program Working Group, an explicitly non-hierarchical decision-making body comprising the two Directors, the Senior Curator, and the ED. The Working Group co-develops program concepts, research thesis, and curatorial framing, operating under the ED’s mission frame and approval authority. This structure is designed to prevent discipline-first hierarchies and to ensure that CCAT’s public programming reflects its identity as a research and experimentation center.

• Fellows Program Leadership
  
  

The Director selects, mentors, and structures CCAT’s moving image faculty fellows and post-graduate fellows, whose applied production and experimentation work helps realize the lab’s research agenda.

• Define fellowship parameters: research focus, production scope, time commitment, outputs, and integration into CCAT’s program and lab.
• Identify and recommend faculty fellows who are applied practitioners whose work advances CCAT’s research priorities through concrete production and experimentation.
• Mentor fellows as practitioners and emerging researchers, fostering independent inquiry within CCAT’s collaborative model.
• Ensure fellows’ work contributes to CCAT’s documentation, publications, and public-facing outputs.
• Educational Engagement and Institutional Integration
  
  

Experience in higher education and familiarity with building or directing academic programs is highly valued. The Moving Image Director’s role requires a genuine pedagogical appreciation and ability to understand and compliment CalArts’ ecosystem.

• Engage with CalArts students and emerging researchers in ways that reflect CCAT’s cross-disciplinary approach and research-first identity.
• Support the interdisciplinary dimensions of CCAT’s visiting artist program, contributing curatorial context and production perspective to artist engagements.
• Contribute to CCAT’s annual symposium, white paper publications, and knowledge-sharing outputs as a scholarly and practical voice.
• Represent CCAT’s moving image vision to external partners, cultural institutions, and field participants with cultural fluency and intellectual rigor.
  
  

All other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

DESIRED COMPETENCIES

• Scholarly depth and broad cross-disciplinary command of moving image practice: expanded cinema, video art, immersive media, VR/AR, projection, and screen-based forms.
• Ability to define research questions that extend beyond technical application into cultural, aesthetic, and institutional discourse.
• Track record of original work, curatorial, scholarly, or practice-based, that positions moving image in relation to contemporary art history and critical theory.
• Strong collaborator and communicator; ability to work across artist, faculty, and partner communities without imposing a single disciplinary lens.
• Experience in higher education and familiarity with building or directing academic programs is highly valued.
• Ability to bridge artistic intent and technical feasibility; comfort navigating both domains with equal respect.
• Experience managing researchers, fellows, or production teams.
• Strong network across contemporary art, media art, and institutional ecosystems.
• Adherence to CalArts and CCAT institutional policies on AI use, and active participation in ongoing policy conversations to help maintain and evolve those standards as the field changes.
  
  

ADMINISTRATION

• On-campus presence at CalArts (Valencia, CA) required; specific cadence to be agreed upon with the Executive Director.
• Active participant in the CCAT Program Working Group.