The New Real Research
Publications
Underpinning Research
Research Projects
Uncanny Machines
Alan Turing Institute & Scottish AI Alliance, 2022-24
Research on a complete 'experiential AI' system developed with and for artists and climate advocates. This integrates data stream and forecasting pipelines for selected climate features, combined with AI processing engines to manipulate images, words, sounds and numbers using the climate data and forecasts as the exploratory parameters. This enables the artists to expose the operation of a machine learning algorithm, and explore the link between global-scale data and what we call “ground truth” or reality.
The New Real: Next Generation Intelligent Experiences
Creative Scotland, 2022-24
A strategic project with Creative Scotland on AI, Creativity and the Arts. A new generation of powerful AI tools open new creative possibilities for artists and fundamentally reshape creative workflows. But with new capabilities, come challenges. Current AI models are trained on massive datasets scraped from the Internet without permission or fair pay for the original creators. There are issues around authorship, consent, fair pay, energy use, harmful bias, and misinformation. The project has four strands: 1. Policy: Creative futures; 2. Infrastructure: Accessible and interpretable AI; 3. Practice: Next generation intelligent experiences; 4. Skills: Critical AI literacies.
The New Real Observatory
Turing 2.0/EPSRC, 2021-22
Research on a complete 'experiential AI' system developed with and for artists and climate advocates. This integrates data stream and forecasting pipelines for selected climate features, combined with AI processing engines to manipulate images, words, sounds and numbers using the climate data and forecasts as the exploratory parameters. This enables the artists to expose the operation of a machine learning algorithm, and explore the link between global-scale data and what we call “ground truth” or reality.
Resilience in the New Real
AHRC, 2020-22
This project will support the UK's world-leading cultural sector to both delight audiences and develop critical literacies in the New Real, to enable post-COVID-19 recovery. It aims to equip cultural producers and audiences with the knowledge and tools to navigate the ways systems make use of our data, how truth and experience are constructed online, the exclusions that are created, and the ways value circulates. Funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Experience in the New Real
SFC/Data+Design Lab, 2020-21
This project explores how the design of festival experiences fuelled by AI can equip cultural organisations to engage audiences in the New Real. A pilot festival experience will be developed to test strategies for festival and cultural events to generate new forms of event and activity that combine the physical and digital. This will focus on climate action and local understanding of global climate data. Funded by Scottish Funding Council as a part of Design Lab.
The New Real Pilots
Edinburgh Futures Institute, 2019-21
Pilot art projects to investigate the entanglements between humans and machines, and explore how experiential methods can reveal insights on future scenarios for ethical and responsible AI.
Experiential AI: A strategic vision and capability for AI in Scotland
Creative Scotland, 2019-21
Research and development to support and enable data-led transformation in Scotland's creative sector, and open a window for artists, audiences and citizens to engage with AI on a palpable level.
Experiential AI Artist Residencies
EU AI Lab & Edinburgh Data Driven Innovation Programme, 2019
Supporting an artist, designer or artists’ collective to create new dimensions in their artistic practice through their encounters with the world of AI, and explore the fairness, morality and transparency of AI systems.