CAMLab Cave
Located at 485 Broadway—just outside Harvard Yard—CAMLab Cave opened in the fall of 2022 and aims to create an experimental stage for instantiating enduring questions of human consciousness within digital, multi-sensorial media. It serves as a hub of innovative forms of knowledge production, pedagogy, and sensorial media practice.
During Public Visits, Harvard FAS CAMLab welcomes audiences to explore our latest immersive installations that stage cultural history with digital technologies.
CAMLab Public Visits will reopen in Spring 2025. Please continue to check this page for further announcements and reservation information.
CAMLab Cave Public Visits are guided group tours that begin on the hour. Reservations are limited to 30 per hour, in order to preserve the experiential dimension of CAMLab’s multisensorial project installations. Tours are led by a team of Harvard student guides, hailing from graduate programs across the university as well as Harvard College.
Private Tour Program
CAMLab projects model cultural and historical experiences that transport 21st century audiences beyond the here and now, across the continuum of time and space. For supporters who contribute a gift of $600 or more toward our mission, CAMLab is pleased to offer a special tour of CAMLab Cave, our immersive exhibition space of project installations on Harvard’s campus. During the tour, one of our core CAMLab staff will lead your group on a 55-mins CAMLab immersive experience. The tour will begin with an overview of CAMLab’s vision and flagship projects, followed by a guided experience of our current installations and a session of Q&A.
To preserve the immersive nature of CAMLab’s installations, CAMLab recommends a maximum group size of 15 participants per tour.
To reserve your spot in the Private Tour Program, please visit the CAMLab Support Page and contact membership@harvardcamlab.com for more information.
Just outside of Harvard Yard, CAMLab Cave is located on the lower level of the 485 Broadway building.
CAMLab Cave
485 Broadway
Lower Level
Cambridge, MA 02138
Parking
There is no parking available in the building, but meter parking can be found in the surrounding area. As an alternative, garage parking is available through Harvard’s parking services at https://hopps.vpcs.harvard.edu.
Subway & Buses
CAMLab Cave is a 10-minute walk from the Harvard Square subway station. This station is served by the Red Line of the MBTA’s subway system as well as many bus lines (1, 86, 69, 87, etc). Please use the MBTA’s trip planner to determine your best route.
CAMLab Cave is wheelchair accessible. Visitors in wheelchairs may use the first floor elevator to access CAMLab Cave on the building’s lower level. The main entrance to 485 Broadway is equipped with swinging power doors.
CAMLab strives to make our installations accessible. If you have access-related questions or require special accommodations, please contact us.
Please note: The Cave Dance project presents a performance in a mirror-lined space, and the Embodied Architecture film is shown in the Immersive Theater. Visitors with sensitivities to flashing lights or dark, enclosed spaces are encouraged to contact CAMLab in advance of their visit.
Cave Dance
Widely acclaimed as Dunhuang’s most representative artistic achievement, scenes of celestial dance performances render beautiful, ethereal figures across numerous Dunhuang caves. CAMLab’s Cave Dance project began by considering Dunhuang’s thousands of dancer depictions as a data set. Taking over 5000 examples of static murals and carved figures, the Cave Dance team used line drawings to establish a common language of postures and train a machine-learning model, which generated animated motion sequences for the dancing figures.
Embodied Architecture
The Embodied Architecture project unfolds the cultural logic of the eleventh-century Shakya Pagoda of the Fogang Monastery (located in Yingxian, China). One of the tallest wooden structures in the world, the pagoda rises 67 meters above the ground and was built without a single nail. It epitomizes the sophistication of medieval Chinese carpentry—and also set the stage for a series of ritual practices.
Shadow Cave
CAMLab’s Shadow Cave project consists of a series of multimedia installations that reinterpret a foundational myth of Buddhism for an international contemporary audience. Spread by word and image throughout the Buddhist world, this story inspired pious yearning and ritual visualization, motivating a millennium of icon-making practices
Concert
Combining digital scenography with acclaimed musicians, CAMLab concerts bridge classical composition and multisensorial media while exploring historical and artistic themes. Many are presented to intimate audiences within CAMLab Cave.
Certificate Program
The CAMLab Certificate Program is a series of workshops held in the Immersive Theater Space at CAMLab Cave, our physical hub at Harvard. Each workshop brings together distinguished experts and creative practitioners from both academia and industry.
Workshop
The CAMLab’s Workshops invite audiences to explore and experiment with the possibilities for art, creative technologies and cultural history. Activating the advanced multimedia infrastructure of CAMLab Cave’s facilities, workshop leaders showcase their expertise at experiential scales. Participatory activities foster creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking.
Seminar
CAMLab invites distinguished scholars to speak about historical and cultural topics that contextualize CAMLab’s projects and advance academic conversations. Past seminars have featured experts from around the world and brought CAMLab into collaboration with many renowned institutions.
CAMLab Cave is pleased to offer its space for private events for individuals, groups, and corporations. With our flagship immersive installations, our venue creates an ideal setting for gatherings of up to 40 guests—whether for family celebrations, cocktail parties, academic events, student workshops, and corporate functions. To make your event even more inspiring by hosting at CAMLab Cave, please contact us via email at camlab@fas.harvard.edu.
Premium Access for CAMLab Membership Community
CAMLab Cave is also a hub for thriving communities of businesses, creative practitioners, and entrepreneurs. Interested in hosting private CAMLab creative programs for your community? Please refer to our membership program ↗ to learn more about joining the CAMLab corporate membership program and contact us today via email (membership@harvardcamlab.com).
