Microsoft, a 2013 BCA 10: Best Businesses Partnering with the Arts in America honoree, has joined the cadre of businesses that are recognizing the benefits of hosting an artist-in-residency program. Recently, digital protraitist James George was invited to become Microsoft Research’s first ever artist-in-residence.

Using little more than a Microsoft Kinect and a stock dSLR camera, George created three pieces: Grip, a two-column video display capturing a pair of people in various 3-D poses, choreographed by Alice Gosti; Wall Queries, which takes the images that Bing search engine produces in response to a query and turns them into a massive, 9’x30’ mural; and and third project, again using images generated in Bing, making a composite of people who’ve had companies like Microsoft, Dell, or Intel tattooed on their body.

Microsoft senior research designer Asta Roseway says that she was thrilled with James’s interaction with Charles and the Bing team, according to an interview with Fast Company. "He’s revealed a way for them to look at their work through a new lens. We were using James as our guinea pig because we wanted to understand how someone like him functions in an environment like this. But I think we’re really really open to bringing in different types. We could bring a fashion designer in and look at the question of wearables, or a poet to come in and look at the question of language analysis.”

Microsoft says it is now toying with expanding its artist-in-residency program following this successful first run.

View the following video, which captures James George's work as Microsoft's first ever artist-in-residence.