Cultivating the System

This event will engage with educators to think about how we position ourselves in the world of AI as disruptors and critics of commercial AI tool norms. The event will explore the narratives constructed around AI. What power do we give these tools in the way we frame them and who are we including in the stories we tell.

Systems Overhaul: How can Architects embrace AI is a series organised by Kirsty Edginton which explores the intersection of AI, architecture, and action. As AI tools, predominantly owned by large corporations, become increasingly profit driven and reflect Western biases through their training data, there is growing concern about their ethical implications and the agendas behind them. A recent RIBA survey revealed that 41% of architects now use AI, primarily with these out-of-the-box commercial tools. However, open-source and self-coded AI is still accessible and can be taught, allowing for grassroots innovation and disruption.

The collection of talks highlights the work of architects and artists addressing AI's inequalities and designing ethical AI tools. It also explores how AI can be used to inspire us to envision different and imaginative futures. By focusing on these efforts, we can underscore the importance of taking action to shape the future of AI.

Speaker bios:
Dr Alexandra (Sasha) Anikina is a media theorist and artist whose work focuses on visual culture, feminist and decolonial tech imaginaries, affective infrastructures, feminist STS and technological conditions of knowledge production, governance, labour and affect. She is Senior Lecturer in Media Practices at the department of Art and Media Technology in University of Southampton and co-director of Critical Infrastructures and Image Politics research group.

Cream Projects is the CGI Direction and Research practice of Ana Nicolaescu and Seb Tiew, established in London in 2020. Using emerging image-making workflows as tools for visibility, their research investigates how technology permeates the contemporary, particularly how it shapes new forms of representation, presence and agency in ever evolving spatial typologies.

Moth is a quantum technology company based in London and Basel building tools and technologies for creative and cultural production with a focus on music, gaming, and visual media. The company was formed around a diverse team of scientists, artists, curators, engineers and entrepreneurs, many of whom have been exploring the transformative potential of quantum technologies in music, gaming and the arts for over a decade. Moth Studios is the team within the company that develops creative and cultural projects, often leveraging their latest research, tools and technologies.

laurent yee (he/they) is a London-based, Southeast Asian designer and educator, who remains embedded in the digital. Having worked in tech for 5 years, they now wield writing, computation and design as tools to unravel how political bias is built into technological systems. They believe tech will never be "the future" if it continues to recreate historical bias. However, tech could be the future if it centres decolonial, antiracist, queer, feminist, transgender logics. Through practice, he hopes to encourage others to build their personal toolkits of technological agency. Laurent's practice is always communal and conversational. He previously spoke/taught at Mozilla Festival (2023), Central Saint Martins, and the National University of Singapore. He has exhibited internationally, including at Antwerp Mansion, Manchester (2024); Bermondsey Project Space, London (2023) and Singapore Art Book Fair (2021). His work was featured on Evening Standard, Dazed, Bricks Magazine, and more. As a designer, selected clients include SoundCloud, queer raves, and various AI companies.