Daytime
Join artists and musicians from the University of Southampton, the Winchester School of Art and around the world to explore how AI and the arts are coming together in media from photography, fashion and literature to comedy and music, in a festival of installations, demonstrations, comedy sets, readings and discussions.
The daytime programme is free to attend and runs from 11am to 5.30pm across Theatre Royal Winchester and The Arc, and is open to all.
Evening
The AI Arts Festival: Evening ticket includes a performance by special guests the Orchestre National de Jazz with machine collaborators â an exploration of interactions between instrumentalists and a machine within a large jazz orchestra.
This will be followed by a lively discussion into how AI and the arts intersect, featuring Dame Wendy Hall, BBC technology journalist Bill Thompson and other special guests.
Dr Pablo Galaz will be showcasing his multimedia live installation: Human-like Inclinations and there will be another chance to catch more comedy!
The evening programme runs from 6pm to 10pm across Theatre Royal Winchester and The Arc.
Discover more about what’s on at the AI Arts Festival below.
Making Music With HandI* – Dr Chiying Lam
Come and have a go with a brand-new app which makes music using hand gestures and movements from your smartphone.
HandI, is a motion-based digital musical instrument (DMI), which unlike typical mobile apps that rely on direct-touch finger input, uses the orientation of your smartphone for musical expression.
This DMI transforms hand gestures and movements into meaningful data for music processing, making it accessible to people with various cognitive and mental impairments. It fosters musical communication among players, allowing collaborative music-making without requiring prior knowledge or demanding motor skills.
As a special feature, we will be recording all the music-making from the participants and crafting a dynamic sound collage at the conclusion of the festival.
Meet an animal robot* – Yijie Gao
Come along and meet the robot animal GUA. Built using AI, GUA has her own preferences and feelings. But be careful though â sheâs not always friendly!
Fat Fingers* – Dr Ian Dawson
Weâve all accidently pressed the wrong button when using a computer or our phone. Have you ever blamed âfat fingersâ?
Ian Dawson explores the amalgamation of photography and AI image software, to ask how accidental images might be arrived at through image prompting. The visual results are a fascinating display.
AI in the Sky* – Dr Laura Cinti
Encephalartos woodii is a rare plant on the verge of extinction, with an estimated 500 left in existence. Existing specimens are all male clones of one plant, bred in botanical gardens and, without a female, it remains the last of its kind.
‘AI in the Sky’ tells a visual story of our ongoing search for the female counterpart, using drone technology and AI. Combining maps from our drone missions with an AI system thatâs always learning, it visually dissects the map into potential areas where the plant could be found.
The Machine Wants to Play* – Dr Seth Giddings
Seth displays an automated slideshow tracing the tangled history and genealogy of artificial intelligence, artificial life and robotics with play, games and toys.
Maximillian and Shane, not Regents Park* – Dave Gibbons
Park Life is an investigative journey into post-documentary photography using AI text-to-image generation tools, and prompt crafting techniques, to create convincing yet absurd photographic imaginations.
Generating Fashion: Towards Digital Futures* – Alice Janssens
Alice explores how fashion, digital technology and generative AI can interact to foster creativity and drive forward innovation in the production and marketing of fashion items.
Storytime with AI* – Dr Kevin Brazil
Kevin Brazil will discuss and read for a short story in progress called ‘Love is Blind’. Set in a reality TV studio, this story features dialogue captured by AI transcription software, which I have also used as part of the writing process. I will talk about how this enables capturing voice and dialogue, and how AI in general can be a fun part of the writing process.
Robot Visions and Virtual Interfacings: seeing, sensing, shaping* – Dr Luci Eldridge
How do past and present technologies affect how we perceive the world and see things? Hear from author Dr Luci Eldridge on how robotic vision is reshaping and reconstituting our perception of the world and the implications for these new ways of seeing ethically, politically, culturally and socially from an art and design perspective.
Love Letters [with AI]* – Dr Benjamin Oliver
âBritish soul sensationâ Hannah Williams and composer Dr Benjamin Oliver perform music inspired by, or created with, AI.
Premiered and recorded by Williams and Riot Ensemble in 2023, ‘Love Letters’ includes melancholic, absurd and dramatic expressions of love made with LovelaceGPT, an AI text generation model developed by University of Southampton researchers.
The programme features cabaret number âHow Could You Prefer It To Me?â by Bella Barlow and Drew Crawford, Anna Applebyâs ‘Reservoir’, selections from Jennifer Walsheâs ‘A Late Anthology of Early Music Vol. 1: Ancient to Renaissance’ and a new version of Oliverâs song cycle ‘Love Letters’.
Live interview* – Professor Thomas Irvine
Live interview of leader of the Orchestre National de Jazz, guitarist and composer FrĂ©dĂ©ric Maurin and saxophonist Steve Lehman â by Tom Irvine, Head of Music at University of Southampton.
Ex Machina – Orchestre Nationale de Jazz^
The Orchestre Nationale de Jazz and the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) present Ex Machina, a programme conceived by the American saxophonist Steve Lehman and Frédéric Maurin, artistic director of the ONJ. Ex Machina is the result of a collaboration with the Musical Representations team at IRCAM, headed by Gérard Assayag, and explores for the first time the possibilities of interaction between the instrumentalists and the machine within a large jazz orchestra.
By integrating devices created using JĂ©rĂŽme Nikaâs Dicy2 environment, which implements interactive agents using machine-learning to generate musical sequences that can be integrated into musical situations, in the composition process and in the soloistsâ improvisations in real-time, the computer becomes, in turn, a generator of electronic orchestrations for the composers and an improvisation partner for the musicians.
Performers and Technicians
· Mrs Fanny Meteier
· Mrs Catherine Delaunay
· Mr Julien Soro
· Mr Fabien Debellefontaine
· Mr Fabien Norbert
· Mr Daniel Zimmermann
· Mrs Christiane Bopp
· Mr Stephan Caracci
· Mr Bruno Ruder
· Mrs Sarah Murcia
· Mr Rafael Koerner
· Mr Frederic Maurin
· Mr Serge Lemouton
· Mrs Olympe Dumoulin
· Mrs Fanny Menegoz
· Mr Stephen Lehman
· Mr Olivier Laisney
· Mr Christopher Dingman
· Mr Erwan Boulay
· Mr Guillaume Jay
· Mr Yves Le Guen
Human-like Inclinations: Composing a multimedia live installation with AI^ – Dr Pablo Galaz
A world premiere event, Dr Pablo Galaz showcases a live installation featuring (Amsterdam-based) musical collective Ensemble Resilience and multidisciplinary artist Angela Wai Nok Hu, in which the audience is immersed in live audiovisuals generated by both humans and AI.
Pabloâs composition (centres on AI notions such as bias and) is inspired by the question: “What would it mean for a machine (AI) to understand what it is like to be the kind of creature we are?”
The audience will be invited to explore the ARC Performance Hall whilst sounds produced by computer models specifically trained for this project by composer and software developer Dr Christopher Melen, musical performers, a multichannel sound diffusion system and video projections, create an immersive experience combining audiovisual elements controlled with facial recognition and sounds generated by electromagnetic waves that are not usually within the reach of the human ear. âResearch in fields such as biolinguistics has shown that there is a blurry distinction between growing and learning in human beings. Our way of learning and growing differs fundamentally from the way AI models are trained. Using visual imagery from medical datasets and facial recognition to control sounds and images in real-time, this piece is inspired by the question: ‘What would it mean for a machine (AI) to understand what it is like to be the kind of creature we are?â explains Pablo.
WetAI Lab: PaintR* – Dr Adam Procter and Dr Christina Mamakos
In this session Dr Adam Procter will talk about his work related to human centred and human understandable Education Technology and AI, and ways to build and consider AI as understandable and sustainable.
Dr Christina Mamakos will present thoughts around how contemporary painting practice might inform image/text AI technology.
Together they will discuss the process of building a proof of function tool and the conversations generated around the related critical theory emerging parallel to the development of the technology.
Comedy Performances – Dr Steve Cross and Professor Les Carr
Daytime Performance*
Standup comedy about AI, from AI researchers at the University of Southampton and comedians across the country. MCâed by Dr Steve Cross, the founder of the chaotic science cabaret show âScience Showoff, our funniest BScâs and nerdiest PhDs will LOL at Alexa and ROFL at the robot apocalypse. Youâll laugh, youâll learn, youâll love our new AI overlords!
Evening Performance^
AI standup comedy, but this time ChatGPT will be the one performing! Under the tutelage of experienced comedian Ted Hill (âFew comedians harness the frenetic activity of their minds quite as comprehensively as Ted Hillâ – Chortle) a version of ChatGPT trained by University researchers will join him the stage to help find the funny with the audience members. Part performance, part scientific experiment, all entertainment – guaranteed!
Click the link below to book your daytime and evening tickets.
*Daytime ticket only
^Evening ticket only