Christopher Meerdo is Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Visual Arts at The Ohio State University, holding a joint appointment between the Department of Art and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design (ACCAD). As an artist and researcher, Meerdo’s sculptural, image, and film work engages with data archives, computational processes, and digital forensics, often incorporating encrypted imagery, leaked documents, synthetic media, and custom machine-learning techniques.  He has exhibited internationally at major institutions including the Renaissance Society, the Mattress Factory Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Gallery of Kosovo, and FOAM Fotographiemuseum Amsterdam. His research and art practice address the critical, ethical, and political dimensions of artificial intelligence, advocating for open-source, community-based, and public-interest alternatives to commercial machine learning architectures. 

 

-Grants: Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, The Hopper Prize, Fellow, Silver Eye Fellowship 15 International Photography Award
-Artist-in-Residence: Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Jan van Eyck Academie, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, SÍM Reykjavik, and the Banff Centre.

-Media Expert Feature, The Discovery Channel, Conspiracy and Cover-Ups (Episode: "Programmed by AI", 2026)

-Published Scholarship: DIAPHANES Magazine, Para-Educational Papers (University of Hamburg), and Techniques Journal

-Member of Observing Power Collective with Daniel Giles

 

-Critical AI ethics, transparency, and public-trust data frameworks

-Open-source, local, and custom machine learning deployments (GANs, LoRAs, node-based workflows)

-Alternative, non-extractive economic and social models for generative technologies

-The intersection of physical making, photogrammetry, and computational output