We are delighted to announce END-OF-LIFE-SERVICE event programme which will run across the afternoon and evening of 29th January 2026 to mark the final month of Stills’ current exhibition Felicity Hammond – V4: Repository.
Stills and Photoworks, in collaboration with BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides), and Inspace, will host this experimental and playful event, marking the imagined end of Artificial Intelligence through a funeral procession and an early-evening wake. Join us as we reflect on all that we have gained and all that we have lost through the passing of AI, with opportunities to create and share your own eulogies.
The event marks both the declared end-of-life of Artificial Intelligence and the final month of Stills’ current exhibition Felicity Hammond – V4: Repository – the final iteration of the artist’s Variations series, commissioned through the Ampersand/Photoworks fellowship.
Felicity Hammond: END OF LIVE SERVICE, is a two-part event beginning with a procession, led by Edinburgh based visual artist Ot Pascoe and Felicity Hammond, with live music accompaniment from musicians including members of Golden Grooves Street Collective, from at Stills (23 Cockburn St, Edinburgh EH1 1BP), inviting participants to convene in the gallery to join this procession and concluding at Inspace for the wake portion of the evening (1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB).
Upon arrival at Inspace, the procession will move through the venue, Felicity Hammond’s full updated service report will be read aloud, whilst the objects are brought in to be placed and displayed in the exhibition space.
This will be accompanied by a SAIéance, a performance by Jules Rawlinson, exploring machine learning as media and spiritualist medium, where uncanny voices are summoned from the ghosts in the machine through an improvisation with feedback networks of neural style transfer audio processing using freely available vocal models. Ushers will hand out an order of service to all in attendance, outlining the evening.
On conclusion of the service report reading and laying down of physical tributes, the celebrant, Nicola Osborne, will invite all attendees to take refreshments and to meet and connect with each other ahead of sharing memories of AI, in all its rich complexity.
The wake will begin with Alex Taylor and Felicity Hammond, with shared reflections on that which is lost with AI, and perhaps how AI might be reborn in more limited and humanely grounded form. The celebrant will then encourage all participants to take time to reflect on their own memories and experiences of AI, and to write their own eulogies with provided paper and pens. Participants’ eulogies may then be shared with the group through spoken word, through a wall of remembrances, or they may be held personally and taken away with the participants as they reflect on their own relationship to AI.
The event will close with the sharing of participant eulogies, including invited reflections and from those who wish to step up on the day. The event will be closed by the celebrant and Felicity Hammond, with thanks given to all. A book of remembrances will also be available at the door as mourners leave, in case they wish to leave further comments.
Music accompaniment will take place throughout the event, drawing on the works co-created with AI to mark its own passing. Visual memories of the deceased, from Felicity Hammond’s Variations, will be presented throughout. No flowers are to be sent.
Tickets are free and available for the procession or the wake or both (see ticketing below).
Event Details
Procession
Date: Thurs 29 Jan 2026
Time: 16:30-17:00 | Free/Ticketed
Location: Stills, 23 Cockburn St, Edinburgh EH1 1BP (please gather in the gallery)
Duration: Approx. 30mins
Event organiser/contact: Stills
Wake
Date: Thurs 29 Jan 2026
Time: 17:00-20:00 | Free/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Duration: Approx. 120mins
Event organiser/contact: Inspace
Speakers/Facilitators:
Felicity Hammond– Artist, educator and senior lecturer at Kingston University
Ot Pascoe – Visual artist based in Edinburgh
Alex Taylor – Sociologist at the Institute of Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Nicola Osborne – BRAID Creative Industries Lead, University of Edinburgh
This event has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Participants with tickets are guaranteed entry. If you have any enquiries about the events and venues, please contact event organisers at info@stills.org or designinformatics@ed.ac.uk
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible
Audience: This event welcomes creatives from any disciplinary background and members of the public interested in topics around AI and responsibility.
Trigger Warning: The structure for this event is inspired by the format of a procession followed by a wake. This event seeks to be playful in its response, however, the event experience might bring up unexpected emotions relating to death or loss and attendees are advised to be aware of this and if they start to feel overwhelmed at any point, to feel free to move away or take space – part of the event space will be set-up as a quiet reflective space.
Please note this event will be filmed and photographed by Stills, Photoworks, Design Informatics and invited Press – Video and Photographs will be used for future marketing, promotional, reporting and archival purposes. If you would prefer not to be filmed or photographed, please let us know at the event.
Running Order
16:30 – 17:00 The Procession begins at Stills, attendees are invited to join the performed procession through Edinburgh’s Old Town, ending at Inspace.
16:45 – 17:00 Inspace Doors Open for those joining the wake only
17:00 – 17:10 Arrival at Inspace by procession
17:10 – 17:35 Laying down of artefacts, reading of Service Report
17:35 – 17:45 Formal welcome by celebrant
17:45 – 18:00 Refreshments and comfort break
18:00 – 18:20 Celebrant and invited speakers share their reflections
18:20 – 18:40 Opportunity to write your own short eulogies to AI
18:40 – 19:15 Sharing of memories, led by invited eulogies.
19:15 – 19:30 Formal closing of event by celebrant and Felicity
More about Speakers and Performers
Felicity Hammond is an artist and educator based in South London. She is a senior lecturer on the MA Photography programme at Kingston University. Recent solo exhibitions include V3: Model Collapse at The Photographers’ Gallery, London and V4: Repository at Stills, Edinburgh. Hammond has exhibited her work in group exhibitions at museums and galleries internationally including Fotomuseum Winterthur, VOX Centre de l’image Contemporaine Montreal, Higher Pictures New York and Saatchi Gallery London, amongst others. She has worked on a number of high profile public art works, including a site-specific work for Photo 2021 Melbourne, Australia and a large scale installation for Colchester and Ipswich Museum, UK. Her work has received and been nominated for a number of awards, including being the recipient of the Ampersand Photoworks Fellowship, 2023.
Nicola Osborne (they/them) is Creative Industries Lead for BRAID (phase 2), Manager of the Institute for Design Informatics and they work on large-scale creative industries innovation, technology and policy projects. Their work particularly focuses on ethical and inclusive practices, leading on equality, diversity and inclusion for CoSTAR Realtime Lab and the Designing Responsible Natural Language Processing Centre for Doctoral Training. Nicola managed Creative Informatics (2018-24) and the connected Creative AI project (2022-4), supporting creatives to do innovative work with data, including supporting SMEs with their own R&D ethics. Nicola is co-editor of Data Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries (Routledge 2024) and an experienced speaker who has also been sharing their research at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of The Provocateurs/the Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas, since 2012.
Ot Pascoe is a visual artist based in Edinburgh. With a broad interdisciplinary practice exploring storytelling and worldbuilding, their work weaves together illustration, broadcasting, wearable sculpture, event production and community work. Previously a Director of artist-run gallery Sett Studios, and currently a breakfast radio broadcaster at community radio station EHFM, Ot has exhibited in Edinburgh and London, collaborated with renowned galleries and festivals, and has been nominated for a World Illustration Award.
Jules Rawlinson is a composer and improviser that works with electronic sounds and digital visuals in solo and collaborative settings to explore performance practices with live electronics across a range of different themes, materials and processes. He is a Senior Lecturer in the Reid School of Music at Edinburgh University. For more information visit
Alex Taylor is a sociologist by training, with longstanding commitments to critically investigating and intervening in the proliferation of technology and machine intelligence. His work has been shaped most heavily by a critical yet hopeful scholarship in feminist technoscience, including works from Ruha Benjamin, Simone Browne, Vinciane Despret, Donna Haraway, and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. He’s currently a Reader in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and an AHRC BRAID Fellow, and co-runs the Critical Data Studies Cluster at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. He is also a Fellow of the RSA and holds visiting roles at the University of Sweden and City, University of London.
Data Protection Statement
How we use and store your data – In providing this information, you are giving explicit consent for us to use your data in our programme and event monitoring, reporting and evaluation processes. The data is managed confidentially. Your data will be collected and held by the Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh (who operate Inspace) and held by the Institute and the BRAID programme (University of Edinburgh), it will also be shared with partner organisations for this event and the associated exhibition: Stills and Photoworks. Your data will only be reported or published in anonymous aggregated forms and will always be processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018 and therefore also in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Data retention period: We will hold this information for a maximum period of 5 years from the date of the event, after which it will be disposed of.
Please read the University’s privacy and Data Protection notice (https://data-protection.ed.ac.uk/notice) for further information. You can also view the Stills privacy policy (https://stills.co.uk/privacy-policy/), the BRAID privacy notice (https://braiduk.org/privacy) and the Photoworks privacy policy (https://photoworks.org.uk/privacy-policy/).
Opt out: If you do not wish to share your information, or would like to modify your consent to collection and processing of personal information, please email us at: designinformatics@ed.ac.uk
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