Modal and Gray Area open a call for projects on art and AI

Gray Area and Modal launch a call for artists using AI, offering $2,000 and $20,000 in compute credits for a group exhibition in San Francisco in October 2026.

San Francisco's Gray Area art and technology space and Modal, a compute infrastructure provider, are partnering on a global call for applications aimed at artists with a long-standing engagement in AI and creative work. The partnership will culminate in a group exhibition at Gray Area, in the Mission district, in October 2026.

The call seeks new works that use AI as a material, or even an infrastructure: systems that infer and circulate knowledge, process large-scale data, and transition between human modalities, from speech to text. The framing is deliberate: against the dominant narrative where inference is equated with automation, standardization, and slop, the organizers are betting on its inherent creativity, under a single question: what can AI unlock?

The call is open to everyone, everywhere, regardless of background, provided that they propose an original creation and not a project already completed. Selected artists will receive a $2,000 honorarium, up to $20,000 in Modal credits for model training or GPU rental, and up to $5,000 in production costs, along with technical and curatorial support and travel expenses covered. Applications must be submitted by July 15.