The Department of Art regularly invites artists, critics, historians and designers to participate in the Visiting Artist Speaker Series, classroom lectures and critiques. The Speaker Series happens every fall semester and is free to the public.

Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits are artists and researchers working in intersection of art, science and emerging technologies since the mid-90s. They are key founders of RIXC Center for New Media Culture in Riga, curators of RIXC Gallery, organisers of RIXC Art and Science festival, and chief editors of Acoustic Space, peer-reviewed journal & book series.

Rasa Smite holds PhD; she is Professor in New Media Art programme in Liepaja University and Senior Researcher at Art Research Lab (MPLab.lv). Raitis Smits also holds doctoral degree (2015); he is Associate Professor in the Art Academy of Latvia (2015).

In 2017 Raitis Smits was Fulbright researcher in Graduate Center CUNY in New York (hosted by Lev Manovich). Since 2017 Rasa also works as artist-researcher in Ecodata project by University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Switzerland).

Their artworks are shown in Ars Electronica Center, HeK (Switzerland), Van Abbe Museum (The Netherlands), KUMU museum in Tallinn (Estonia), Stockholm Science and Technology Museum (Sweden), RAM Gallery (Oslo), kim? Contemporary Art Center, Arsenals National Arts Museum (Latvia), and many other places.

They have received Prix Ars Electronica (1998), National Award of Excellence in Culture (2016).

http://smitesmits.com/index.html