We are delighted to announce that for the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival Inspace Gallery will present two exhibitions and an associated events at Inspace.
Designing Data Humans
10am-5pm daily, 30-31 Mar 2024
Designing Data Humans exhibition features the work of Design Informatics MSc/MA students presenting a series of playful prototypes which examine and question our relationships to data technologies. View the works on display that try to help us to understand what it means to be human in a digital world and explore ideas addressing sustainable practices at the intersection of data and design, culture and society.
The BOXinteractive installation by Dr Fiona Smith, Creator in Residence at Fraunhofer MEVIS, explores the practical and ethical implications of integrating AI technology into healthcare accompanied by events that open up the creative process. Come explore the ‘black box’ aspect of AI technology in the context of digital medicine and journey into the internal and invisible workings of AI systems through the artwork and the associated events.
Learn how artists, scientists, and school students created an innovative science engagement space to explore the promises and challenges of AI in future healthcare.
Join us for the Panel Discussion on “Transformative Spaces: Science-Art Residencies” followed by the Exhibition Opening of “The BOX” on 18:00-20:00 Friday, 5 April, as part of the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival.
*See Venue Update
About the Panel
This panel will take place at Informatics Forum (please note venue change) and brings together Fiona Smith (Creator-in-residence), Matthias Günther and Bianka Hofmann (Fraunhofer MEVIS) and Caterina Mouruzzi and Nicola Osborne (Institute for Design Informatics, University of Edinburgh), to give insights into the “STEAM Imaging V” residency. Join this event to learn how artists, scientists, and school students created an innovative science engagement space to explore the promises and challenges of AI in future healthcare.
Exhibition Opening
This panel will be followed by a drinks reception in Inspace Gallery, opening the exhibition, ‘The BOX’ where audiences will be able to experience the interactive installation, as part of the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival.
Dr Fiona Smith is a doctor and an AI scientist whose passion for art has led her to exploring multimedia approaches for public engagement throughout her career.
Fiona is a graduate of the University of St Andrews and the University of Manchester Medical Schools. She completed her foundation training in South East Scotland and her Plastic Surgery Themed Core Surgical Training in North East England. In 2021 she joined the CDT for Biomedical AI at the University of Edinburgh, where in addition to investigating AI applications in surgery for her PhD, she is a tutor for Case Studies in AI Ethics.
Matthias Günther studied Physics at the University of Heidelberg and did his Ph.D. at the Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg on sophisticated Magnet Resonance Imaging development and applications. After receiving his Ph.D., he joined Advanced MRI Technology, a company founded by David Feinberg in California. After three and a half years, Dr. Günther came back to Germany to found his own company in Heidelberg, mediri GmbH, offering (research) services for image-based clinical trials. He also continued his scientific career at the university hospital Mannheim. After Habilitation in 2008, he became Professor at the University Bremen and joined Fraunhofer MEVIS in Bremen as part of the management board. He is now deputy institute director of Fraunhofer MEVIS with a joint professorship on MR-Physics
Bianka Hofmann is a producer and developer of contemporary formats to inspire experiences with new technologies, incorporating spaces for artistic practice and reflection in the humanities. Through this approach, she wants to enable a diverse audience to build an emotional and positive relationship with science and technology while avoiding uncritical optimism. Hofmann initiates, produces, and directs intersectional projects leveraging deep scientific knowledge within programs, productions, services, and workshops across science, integrating art. Specialized in the transdisciplinary transfer of knowledge through interactive experiences, she has delivered interactive exhibits and immersive experiences encompassing 2D-large-scale and 3D short films. Hofmann leads an international artist residency program at a research institution, including participatory STEAM courses to stimulate critical dialog about and widen the ownership of new technologies. She works presently as Head of Science Communication at Fraunhofer MEVIS.
Caterina Moruzzi is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the Institute for Design Informatics, School of Design and research affiliate of the Edinburgh’s Futures Institute at the University of Edinburgh. Her research lies at the intersection between the philosophy of art, history and philosophy of human and artificial creativity, and the philosophy of AI. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Nottingham and an artist diploma in piano performance from the Conservatorio G.B.Martini, Bologna, Italy. In her ongoing projects, she collaborates with researchers, artists, and technology companies to investigate modes of shared agency and creativity between humans, data, and technology.
Panel Chair
Nicola Osborne (they/them/she/her) is Manager of the Institute for Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, EDI and Industry Partnerships Lead for the new UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training for Responsible and Trustworthy in-the-world NLP, and a co-investigator of the AHRC-funded CoSTAR Real-Time Lab. Nicola also manages Creative Informatics, supporting creative people to do innovative things with data. They also work on the EU-funded EKIP: Cultural and Creative Industries Policy Engine project, looking at how policy interventions can support creative innovation across Europe. Nicola is co-editor of forthcoming book: Data Driven Innovation in the Creative Industries (Routledge, April 2024).
Join us in Inspace for an artist talk given by Angela Woodhouse and Caroline Broadhead with guest talk by Nicole Fernandez.
Join us in Inspace for Who Cares opening event, exhibition talks and panel discussion. This event features an artist talk given by Angela Woodhouse and Caroline Broadhead with guest talk by Nicole Fernandez who will present her project ‘Images of Care’. This will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Susan Lechelt, who’s research is concerned with understanding and augmenting people’s perceptions and uses of data-driven technologies.
Event details
Tues, 5 Dec 2023 18:00-20:00 Free | Booking required Inspace
Artist Caroline Broadhead and Dancemaker Angela Woodhouse will share the creative process in the making of Who Cares, their video installation at Inspace, that explores the aesthetics of thermal imaging within the wider theme of care and contagion. They will discuss the initiation of the project through interviews with ICU nurses at Whittington Hospital, London and how their voices and experiences prompted the development of material in the studio. The artists will share footage and images from the research phase to illustrate themes such as touch, heat trace, intimacy, care, and ethics. The aim of the project is to acknowledge recent events, specifically the difficult and often traumatic experiences for carers, to question how do we care for the carers, and this in the context of the need to make an aesthetic object. The materiality of thermal imaging also draws upon the expanded body as data, drawing attention to readings of the body through biology.
About Images of Care
The Images of Care research project is part of the Advanced Care Research Centre (ACRC), a multi-disciplinary research programme at the University of Edinburgh. The aim of the Images of Care project is to gain a deeper understanding of care in later life through examining visual representations of care. The research consisted of both a detailed analysis of images of care in the news media during COVID-19 alongside understanding how individuals themselves visually communicate their experiences of care. It is crucial to examine how care in later life is visually represented, as these visual representations shape societal norms and perceptions surrounding aging and care.
Speakers
Caroline Broadhead
Caroline Broadhead’s interdisciplinary practice explores objects that come into contact with and interact with the body. Her work is exhibited internationally and represented in many international collections, including V&A, Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Museum of Art and Design, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Her 2017 retrospective exhibition was shown in the Netherlands and the UK. She is Professor Emerita at Central Saint Martins, London.
Dance artist Angela Woodhouse’s work is essentially interdisciplinary and collaborative and has been shown widely over the last 30 years, most recently (Un)touched (2016-2020) and (de)figured (2017) in collaboration with artist Nathaniel Rackowe, exhibited in Belgrade, Oslo and Dubai respectively. Their latest work Expanded Landscapes was commissioned as part of Summer Lights Festival, Canary Wharf in 2022. In 2018 Angela was Artist in Residence at Siobhan Davies Studios as part of the MA/ MFA Creative Practice. She is currently senior lecturer in Dance at Middlesex University.
Susan Lechelt is a lecturer in Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, working across interaction design and human-computer interaction. One key focus of her research is exploring emerging links between creative practice and contemporary technologies. As part of the Creative Informatics programme, she worked with a range of creative practitioners (e.g., visual and performing artists) to support them in considering how to use technologies ranging from Internet of Things to Artificial Intelligence in their work and practice. Her research also navigates questions of care, primarily in the context of using care as a lens to support more sustainable relationships between people and the technologies we own
Dr Nichole Fernández
Dr Nichole Fernández is a visual sociologist specialising in media studies, currently working as a Research Fellow on the Images of Care project at the Advanced Care Research Centre (University of Edinburgh). Within the ACRC, Nichole is exploring the how care later in life is visually represented and constructed. With a background in creative and visual methodologies, her expertise extends across diverse subjects, including digital sociology, mental health, migration, geography, nationalism, and environment. Before joining the ACRC, Nichole held positions as a Lecturer in Sociology at UCSD and an assistant professor at Hiram. Her PhD was conducted at the University of Edinburgh in sociology researching representations of nation and place.
Interactive SciArt Installation by Fiona Smith (UK)
If we feed the AI with incomplete or biased data – can we expect it to come up with reasonable predictions?
‘The BOX’, is an interactive installation by Dr Fiona Smith, Creator in Residence at Fraunhofer MEVIS, presented by the Institute for Design Informatics, exploring the practical and ethical implications of integrating AI technology into healthcare.
The potential benefits of utilising AI technology in healthcare are vast but there are important practical, technological, ethical and legal implications that need to be addressed in order to safeguard patients. The BOX is an interactive installation that explores the ‘black box’ aspect of AI technology and asks “If we feed the AI with incomplete or biased data – can we expect it to suggest reasonable treatment plans?”.
Visitors to The BOX installation will be taken on an interactive journey through an alternative hospital clinic. Acting as patients, they will be scanned and then presented with their test results to The BOX. Through a dynamic light display, The BOX will then communicate the treatment plan it has decided for each patient. Once processed, the visitors will be given the opportunity to interrogate the knowledge base used by The BOX to make its decision.
The BOX
An interactive installation exploring the practical and ethical implications of integrating AI technology into healthcare
Background
The STEAM Imaging V creator residency brought together the artist Fiona Smith, scientists at Fraunhofer MEVIS, and students from the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen and the Walle School Center to discuss the important ethical, legal and practical implications of implementing AI technology in healthcare. Building AI models that make accurate predictions for patients requires diverse training data sets that are representative of the test population. In some cases it might be possible to continuously update the model with new training data as it becomes available, but how do you regulate a model where performance is continuously changing? How do you detect when the accuracy of the predictions being made by a deployed model is changing or showing differential performance across different patient groups? These questions and more are explored with The BOX, which has been produced in collaboration with the Institute for Design Informatics, Edinburgh, and premieres at the Inspace Gallery as part of the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival.
The BOX is the artistic outcome of the Creator in Residence Programme ’STEAM Imaging V Holding the ‘Digital’ in Medicine to Account’, hosted by Fraunhofer MEVIS, Bremen, Germany, in collaboration with the Institute for Design Informatics, Edinburgh, the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen, and the School Center Walle, Bremen, Germany, supported by Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria.
This event is part of this year’s Edinburgh Science Festival exploring the theme Shaping the Future, showcasing some of the cutting-edge science that can help us create a future that is sustainable, accessible and equal for all.
Exhibition details
6-19 Apr 2024 10am-5pm daily Inspace gallery
Creator in Residence
Dr Fiona Smith is a doctor and an AI scientist whose passion for art has led her to exploring multimedia approaches for public engagement throughout her career.
Fiona is a graduate of the University of St Andrews and the University of Manchester Medical Schools. She completed her foundation training in South East Scotland and her Plastic Surgery Themed Core Surgical Training in North East England. In 2021 she joined the CDT for Biomedical AI at the University of Edinburgh, where in addition to investigating AI applications in surgery for her PhD, she is a tutor for Case Studies in AI Ethics.
Programme Partners
Fraunhofer MEVIS develops real-world software solutions for image-and-data-supported early detection, diagnosis, and therapies for severe diseases and is embedded in a worldwide network of clinical and academic partners. The Institute’s scientists are committed to raising awareness about how digital medicine and related STEM sciences influence healthcare, and develop experiential projects at the intersection of science, art, and technology to reach new and diverse audiences, stimulate critical dialog between, and foster a more diverse R&D landscape.
Associated Event
Transformative Spaces: Science-Art Residencies
This panel event brings together those involved in the “STEAM Imaging V” residency, to give give insights into the process
This interactive exhibition features the work of students from the MSc and MA Design Informatics course at the University of Edinburgh. Students have created a series of playful prototypes which examine and question our relationships to data technologies and consider how we can use data as a tool for design. The works on display help us to understand what it means to be human in a digital world and explore ideas addressing sustainable practices at the intersection of data and design, culture and society.
Exhibition details
30-31 Mar 2024 10am-5pm daily Inspace gallery
MA/MSc Programmes
Design Informatics MA and MSc programmes focus on providing foundational skills on the integration of design thinking and data science with an emphasis on exploring the role of data-driven technologies in society and the potential of such technologies to be a social good. Students are supported to develop an ethically aware, critically reflective technical practice at the interface between data and society by combining theory and research with an open-ended process of making and hacking.
Presenting a programme of exhibitions and events featuring Design Informatics Master students and Creator in Residence exploring AI, technology, data and ethics.
Everest Pipkin is a game developer, writer, and artist from central Texas who lives and works on a sheep farm in southern New Mexico. Their work both in the studio and in the garden follows themes of ecology, tool making, and collective care during collapse. When not at the computer in the heat of the day, you can find them in the hills spending time with their neighbours— both human and non-human.
Theodore Koterwas is an artist working with data, physical phenomena and the human body to make things resonate. He seeks to draw critical attention to aspects of daily experience that often go unnoticed but profoundly impact on how we understand each other, technology and the environment.
Can you believe what you hear? When is a voice or sound authentic? This exhibition, curated by the Institute for Design Informatics, brings together exciting experimental artists including Martin Disley, Theodore Koterwas and Everest Pipkin, who are working with sound…
A new exhibition at Inspace Gallery bringing together international artists working with sound and emerging technologies to explore deep fake audio. Premiering as part of the 2023 Edinburgh Festivals, the exhibition is a collaboration between Inspace Gallery, the Institute of…
Touch reveals the boundaries between us but it also connects us, enabling us to transcend our physical limits.
Working with dance and thermal imagery to explore our sense of touch, their moving image work generated from heat data reveals new insights into the expanded body, asking questions about the role of care in society.
Exhibition Supported by the Institute for Design Informatics, Arts Council England and Middlesex University.
Caroline Broadhead’s interdisciplinary practice explores objects that come into contact with and interact with the body. Her work is exhibited internationally and represented in many international collections, including V&A, Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Museum of Art and Design, New York and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Her 2017 retrospective exhibition was shown in the Netherlands and the UK. She is Professor Emerita at Central Saint Martins, London.
Dance artist Angela Woodhouse’s work is essentially interdisciplinary and collaborative and has been shown widely over the last 30 years, most recently (Un)touched (2016-2020) and (de)figured (2017) in collaboration with artist Nathaniel Rackowe, exhibited in Belgrade, Oslo and Dubai respectively. Their latest work Expanded Landscapes was commissioned as part of Summer Lights Festival, Canary Wharf in 2022. In 2018 Angela was Artist in Residence at Siobhan Davies Studios as part of the MA/ MFA Creative Practice. She is currently senior lecturer in Dance at Middlesex University.
Angela and Caroline have collaborated on many works since 1997. These include site and installation projects that find synergies between materials, space, movement and audience. Venues include Sadler’s Wells, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Lightbox, Woking (in partnership with Tate Artist Rooms) and Royal Opera House. Historic buildings for which site works were commissioned include Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, Witley Court, Worcestershire, and Upnor Castle, Rochester.
Exhibition Credits
Who Cares by Angela Woodhouse and Caroline Broadhead
Dancers Martina Conti and Alice Labant Producer Alexa Seligman Editor Dominique Rivoa With thanks to ICU nurses of Whittington Hospital, London and to Mikkel Svak for technical assistance.
Supported by the Institute for Design Informatics, Arts Council England and Middlesex University.
Ximulacra; a robot which scans analogue film photo negatives of mountain scenes and re-interprets them as dance!
The photos capture how mountain forms and their surroundings life shift from the Karakoram range in Pakistan to the Helan Mountains in China. As the analogue photos are abstracted into digital movement, this perception and embodiment driven piece seeks to explore the interaction between artificial and natural entities to generate novel digital-analogue hybrid scenes. Ximulacra experiments with how humans perceive visual data and how human-machine interaction can contribute to the poetic reading of photography.
Join Inspace and the Institute for Design Informatics, for Ximulacra opening reception and event featuring artist talk by lead artist Shankar Saanthakumar. Hear about the exhibited work on show and gain insights into the concept behind this digital-analogue piece which explores human-machine interaction using an image processing algorithm.
Shankar Saanthakumar is an artist working across sculpture, paint, and computation to explore themes of perception and embodiment. He is particularly interested in how these themes relate to the feeling of mind-body (dis)connection in humans, and how exploring them in non-human systems can reveal insights into the human condition. For Ximulacra he contributed photography from the Karakoram range in Pakistan, and led the design of the robotic systems.
Shankar is also a regular performer at Wavetable, a monthly night of sonic experimentation in Edinburgh. There he fuses paintings and analogue photography with code to create digital-analogue hybrid-scene live coded visuals to compliment experimental electronic music.
Zhu Runzi is a photographer working from Shanghai and Paris, with a specialisation in capturing architecture and interior concepts within their contextual surroundings. The photos showcased in this exhibition were captured in the Helan Mountain, a geographical landmark significant to his hometown in Ningxia Province. This trip marked his first foray into the heart of Helan Mountain, rekindling cherished memories from 20 years of living in NingXia whilst also providing fresh insights into his self-identity. Through the photos he reconnected with the environment where he was raised, and tapped into formative unconscious memories which still influence his life today.
He obtained his Master’s degree in Architecture from the University of Manchester and his Bachelor’s from the University of Liverpool. During this time he discovered a profound passion for documenting cityscapes and street life through photography. This passion became the cornerstone of his career as an architectural photographer, leading to collaborations with numerous international publications and studios such as Domus and Foster + Partners.
Led by Zheng Da, the Low Tech Art Lab at Central China Normal University concentrates on the interdisciplinary relationships between art, science, and technology. In the lab, hardware engineers, creative coders, and sound artists work together to take a “low tech” approach to making games, light installations, and robotic systems. These seek to create playful human-machine interactions which question conventional relationships with technology. The members of the studio which collaborated on Ximulacra are Owen Chan, Jingyuan Lin, and Shuya Zhang. They led the development of the vision algorithm for Ximulacra and contributed to the robot design process.
Floa aka Sonam Gray is a Scottish sound artist based in Edinburgh. He has been immersed in creating electronic music throughout his life through a variety of formats and software and creates now mainly on modular synths as Floa. He attended both the University of the Arts and the School of Audio Engineering. His work past, has included studio recording, post production, Foley, location sound, and installation sound whilst in his residencies of London, New York and Los Angeles. He is also a founding member of the local collective ‘Wavetable’.
Gallery
Photography by Jess Shurte
Credits
Led by Shankar Saanthakumar, in collaboration with Zhu Runzi and the Low Tech Art Lab who, respectively, helped to develop the photography and image processing algorithm elements of the project.
Supported by: This project is supported by the British Council Connections Through Culture Programme, the Tinderbox Collective, the Institute for Design Informatics and Inspace.
A design exhibition held at the Information+ conference
Information xyz celebrates the most recent contributions of our global community of practitioners, artists, and researchers. As part of the Information+ biannual conference, we share in the sometimes subtle, often challenging, but always intentional process of shaping data into form. For this year’s exhibition program, we present a collection that speaks to the interconnectedness of technology, environment, and humanity.
This exhibition explored four main critical themes across the fourteen pieces.
Focusing on the unseen—“Borders, Bullets and Books” exposes the harsh realities of conflict on education in the Kashmir valley. “Mapping Diversity” uses the digital landscape to dissect the complexities of gender and diversity in Europe. The more abstract visualities of “Post_Networks” value the spaces between connections, pushing us to consider the hidden traces left by networks in the digital age. “Macromicroscope” brings the unseen into focus, drawing attention to the consequences of human actions on biodiversity and climate, and the “Island of Loneliness” brings to the forefront the silent epidemic of loneliness magnified by social media.
Challenging social norms—“Though a patriarchy would privilege the changelessness—of the sun—over the inconstancy of the moon and you” questions societal norms about menstrual cycles, while “From my terrace” reflects on the modern struggle for work-life balance.
Our environmental existence—Carla Fernández Arce’s data-driven installation on imported fruits urges a reflection on our food choices, while “Back to Square One” confronts the issue of fashion waste, and Chloe Prock’s exploration of worn textile trade provides a stark look at the realities of fast fashion sustainability. By reflecting on the environmental impacts of pollution, “Ripple Effect” translates the contamination of water into an audio-visual experience.
Questioning media-Lastly, two critical works question traditional media of data visualization. While “Shine through Mars” renders the Martian atmosphere comprehensible through light, “Data-distortion exercises” will lead you through a hands-on, critical approach to data visualization.
Together, these data-driven works urge you to ponder the delicate relationship between our digital existence and the physical world, questioning established norms, and highlighting the often overlooked or unseen aspects of contemporary life.
