"To prevent undue wreckage in society, the artist tends now to move from the ivory to the control tower of society."
– Marshall McLuhan
The US Department of Art & Technology is an artist-led, virtual government agency. The USDAT functions as a conduit between the arts and the broader political and economic culture for facilitating the artist' need to extend aesthetic inquiry into the social sphere where ideas become real action. The Department proposes and supports the idealized definition of the role of the artist in society as one whose reflections, ideas, aesthetics, sensibilities, and abilities can have significant and transformative social impact on the world stage.