Presenting a pop-up exhibition of current research, in Inspace at the Institute of Design Informatics. Design Informatics brings design and data together to create a world that is socially just, where people live well, have agency and autonomy, and are able to adapt and transition how they live to ensure the planet flourishes.
Join us at Inspace to experience technology driven research projects that explore the future of creative practice alongside generative AI and look into the archives of the “cybersyn” project. Meet our new robotic gallery assistant Bluebelle, and chat to researchers about current projects Mapping Imaginaries, The cybersyn archives and ekip.
Exhibition details
Date: Saturday 26th September 2026
Time: 10:00 – 14:00
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Scroll down to read more about featured projects
Mapping Imaginaries: Futures of Creative Practice with AI
What will creative work look like in 2030? We asked 70 artists, designers, and creative professionals to imagine the future of their craft alongside generative AI.
Rather than choosing between hype and fear, they mapped a spectrum of possible futures: from radical change to a return to hands-on, analogue craft. This pop-up exhibition brings their visions to life through the original illustrations of illustrator Chris Day. Journey through the debate, meet six “creative-AI archetypes,” explore a spectrum of possible futures, and confront the tensions still to be resolved.
This research is part of the BRAID Fellowship CREA-TEC, supported by the BRAID program, with funds from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) [grant AH/X007146/F], and the support of the Edinburgh Futures Institute for their support. Link to website:
The Cybersyn Archives. An Exploratory Visualisation
This visualisation prototype focuses on the archives of the “Cybersyn” project—part of the Stafford Beer Archive held at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) in England. The archive contains diverse materials, ranging from photographs, handwritten documents, and diagrams to official records.
The “Cybersyn” project (also known as “SYNCO”) was an economic planning initiative developed in Chile during the administration of Salvador Allende Gossens (1971–1973). It consisted of a network of teletype machines connecting the country’s factories to a computing centre in the capital, Santiago; there, information regarding factory production was received, processed, and analysed using the principles of cybernetics.
The system was based on the ideas of British scientist Stafford Beer (1926–2002), who believed that cybernetics could reveal commonalities in the complex functioning of social systems (organisations), biological systems (organisms), and mechanical systems (machines).
Stafford Beer and this project are of great significance to the history of computing in Latin America—particularly regarding the interplay of power, economics, politics, and technology—and are also considered a precursor to today’s data culture.
Meet Bluebelle, our new robotic gallery assistant in Inspace!
You can meet, greet and help design Bluebelle during our Doors Open Day event
Bluebelle can show you around Inspace and introduce some of its exhibitions, but it mostly needs help from everyone as it wants a new ‘look’. Visitors to the Inspace Open Doors event will have the opportunity to come up with design ideas for Bluebelle, ranging from giving it a human or animal design, picking colours, fabrics and more…
Bluebelle is a sibling of hitchBOT, the famous hitchhiking robot!
ekip: DI’s Contribution to the European Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Policy Platform
This exhibit summaries the DI team’s contributions to the EU Horizon-funded project ekip: The European Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Policy Platform.
The project is formed of 17 organisations across Europe and seeks to boost development of innovation capacity in open innovation ecosystems to include the Cultural and Creative Industries. This showcase celebrates how the values of DI were brought to this collaboration through participatory design activities and creative approaches to innovation and policy making.
This event is part of Doors Open Day 2026.
This project has received funding through the UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee Fund under Grant Ref: EP/Z001099/1