The Duke-DKU Presence Lab (2025-) draws from media arts, digital media, and humanities, in context of theory, history, critical practice, and global conversations, to explore pressing topics at the intersection of computation, media, and culture. We are interested in the future of reality in a digitally hybrid world, and how embodied, engaged communities can flourish across space and time. The question we are raising is whether we can create a deeper sense of connection across our campuses through meaningful, sustained and creative synchronous and asynchronous exchanges. In our initial cycle, the group will pay special attention to questions of presence, virtuality, artificial intelligence / agency, and materiality.