Ecstatic Visions: Live Album Concert

Join us for Ecstatic Visions, a live album concert performance by soprano Stephanie Lamprea and electronic musician Alistair MacDonald.

The performance, celebrating the launch of a new album recording released on Neuma Records, will feature live music for voice and electronics, dance performance by Suzi Cunningham, video art by Oana Stanciu, and creative captions by Stephanie Lamprea.

Ecstatic Visions

A curated exploration of feminine vocality, technology, and creation myths

Concert Details

Date: Fri 27 Feb 2026
Time: 18:00-20:30 | Free*/PWYC*/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Audience: General public / Suitable for Ages 12+ (under 18’s must be accompanied by an adult)

*PWYC – Ticket pricing for this event includes a ‘Pay What You Can’ ticket option to support digital donations.
*FREE – for free tickets there will be facilities to leave an optional cash donation on the door.
All ticket donation proceeds go directly to the artists, to support their concert costs and to positively contribute to the sustainability of their creative practices.

Running Order:
Please arrive up to 15mins early to take your seat as the performance will start promptly at 18:00
17:45 – Doors Open
18:00 – Performance Intro
18:05 – Live Concert
19:30 – Audience Q&A, with Lamprea, MacDonald and Cunningham moderated by Theodore Kotwerwas
20:00 – Reception
20:30 – Event end

Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

If you have any enquiries about the events and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Venue Access Info

Sensory Statement

Inspace is a bright white space and for this performance natural light has been blocked out to accommodate the spot lit performance and video backdrop.

The performance features Stephanie Lamprea as the lead vocalist, a soprano who showcases powerful vocal agility with a variety of sound including lyrical singing, ornamenting runs, trills, and leaps, and other vocalisation. The songs performed in the concert range from quiet to loud and contain a combination of slow to fast paced materials which vary in intensity across the concert. Her voice will also be amplified.

The accompanying electronic music by Alistair MacDonald, played back through speakers on stage and behind the audience, includes immersive textures and sometimes unfamiliar sounds. It is sometimes loud but we aim for this not to be at an uncomfortable level. The concert features video by Stephanie Lamprea and Oana Stanciu which includes text, familiar images, and more abstract colours and shapes; there are some fast moving images and flashing light but no strobe. The concert also features dance by Suzi Cunningham who responds through dynamic movement to the rhythm, pace and intensity of the songs.

There are chairs at the rear of the audience area and wide steps with cushions towards the front. If you are sensitive to aural or visual stimuli and at any stage feel the need to take a break, there will be some additional seating away from the main performance area where the sound and visuals will be less intense. Audience members who may benefit from ear protection to manage sensory processing are welcome to bring their own devices, and disposable ear plugs will also be available at the door.

Concert Programme

ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN: Letras para cantar (2019)
ALISTAIR MACDONALD: Ecstatic Visions (2023)
WENDE BARTLEY: Ellipsis (1988)
Improvisation: Stai în banca ta / Behave
ROBERT LAIDLOW: Post-Singularity Songs (2023-24)

Singing worlds into existence, from Medieval mystics to AI oracles, Ecstatic Visions offers a shining gateway into other realms. The five transcendental works on the album forge a deep connection between Stephanie Lamprea’s visceral vocal presence and the live electronics of composer Alistair MacDonald, playing with how the voice is embodied or liberated by technology. Sourcing texts from 12th-century mystic Hildegard von Bingen and proto-feminist poet Juana Inés de la Cruz to AI-generated narratives, the album places historical visionaries and modern technology side by side as sacred oracles.

The album’s program is a curated exploration of feminine vocality, technology, and creation myths. It includes:

• Angélica Negrón’s atmospheric Letras para cantar, a sensual setting of poetry by 17th century nun from New Spain, Juana Inés de la Cruz.

• Alistair MacDonald’s immersive Ecstatic Visions, commissioned for the Glasgow Cathedral Festival. It forges Lamprea’s voice with the sound of the cathedral’s great bell and Hildegard von Bingen’s writings on gemstones and visions, creating a series of kaleidoscopic, multi-channel illusions.

• Wende Bartley’s Ellipsis maps the three phases of the moon (waxing, full, and waning), in association with three archetypes of woman(virgin, mother, and crone).

• Eric Chasalow’s The Fury of Beautiful Bones, a powerful setting of Anne Sexton’s raw confessional poetry, where the electronic part stretches the voice into impossible, resonant shapes.

• Robert Laidlow’s Post-Singularity Songs, a monodrama featuring a creation myth co-authored with ChatGPT. The work blends Laidlow’s writing with poetry by Emily Dickinson and John Donne, and text from a specially created poetry-generating AI, exploring themes of dust, death, and free will in a digital universe.

At the heart of this album is the question of where the ‘self’ resides when the voice—the most embodied instrument—is transformed by circuitry. Collaborating with Alistair, we treated all sound as a physical entity. Whether singing Hildegard’s chants, or becoming a vessel for an AI’s creation myth, the goal was to find a profound, often political, connection and authenticity.
says Stephanie Lamprea

Ecstatic Visions is built on the physicality of sound. From the resonant space of Glasgow Cathedral to the intimate digital processing of Stephanie’s voice, we explore how electronic sound can extend, dislocate, and ultimately re-embody the human voice in new and meaningful ways.
Alistair MacDonald adds

Contributors

Colombian-American soprano Stephanie Lamprea is an architect of new sounds and expressions as a performer, recitalist, curator, composer, and improviser, specializing in contemporary-classical repertoire. Trained as an operatic coloratura, Stephanie uses her voice as a mechanism of avant-garde performance art, creating “maniacal shifts of vocal production and character… like an icepick through the skull” (composer Jason Eckardt). She has been praised by Opera News Magazine for “her iconoclasm and fearless commitment to new sounds” and for her “impressive display of extended vocal techniques, in the honorable tradition of such forward-looking artists as Bethany Beardslee, Cathy Berberian and Joan La Barbara.” Her work has been described as “stunning, harrowing, agonising, sonorous…” by The Observer, “divinely deranged” by the Herald Scotland, and that she “sings so expressively and slowly with ever louder and higher-pitched voice, that the inclined listener [has] shivers down their back and tension flows into the last row.” (Halberstadt.de) She has performed as a soloist at Roulette Intermedium (New York City), Constellation Chicago, Sound Scotland, Kings Place (London), Southbank Centre (London), the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the National Concert Hall (Dublin), the Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), the Hidden Door Festival (Edinburgh), and the Casa da Música (Porto). She has collaborated with leading new music ensembles and bands including the Riot Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, the City of London Sinfonia, Sō Percussion, and Post Coal Prom Queen.

Alistair MacDonald is a composer and performer who creates uniquely rich, spatialised music and sound. Often collaborative, his work encompasses field recording, live electronics, interactivity and improvisation with live electronics. He makes standalone electroacoustic works, music for instruments and voices, music and sound design for dance, film and art gallery installations. Recent recordings include duo performances with soprano Stephanie Lamprea, Scottish harpist Catriona McKay, and Estonian singer Anne-Liis Poll. A solo CD of his electroacoustic works was published in 2017 by Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes. Collaborative projects include The White Cave (film/installation) with Jesse Jones, Stephanie Lamprea and Erin Thomson for the Singapore Biennale, 2025; The moss and the cosmos, (film, 2021), with Kim Beveridge, commissioned by The Cumnock Tryst, UK; music for the 1922 film Nosferatu (2018), with Phil Minton (UK) and Vlady Bystrov (Germany); The Last Post (trumpet and electronics, 2016) with trumpet player Tom Poulson commissioned by the St Magnus Festival 2016 and selected for the Made in Scotland showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017; three works with dance company Reckless Sleepers (UK and Belgium 2018-22); works with Carrie Fertig, on music for glass percussion, electronics and live flame-working, including Le Sirenuse (film, 2014) selected for the Royal Scottish Academy Open Exhibition 2015 and Flames and Frequencies (performance/film, 2013) selected for the Coburg Prize for Contemporary Glass 2014. (USA, Germany, UK); Silver Wings and Golden Scales (installation, 2007) with Jennifer Angus commissioned by the Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin,USA; and The Imagining of Things (installation, 2013) with Brass Arts, Huddersfield Art Gallery, UK. Other commissions include music for The Scottish Ensemble, The Paragon Ensemble, BBC Radio Scotland, Reeling and Writhing, the Australian ensemble Elision, choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh and Theatre Cryptic. His music is published by the Canadian label empreintes DIGITALes.

Suzi Cunningham is a Scottish live-performance artist and Butoh dancer. Her solo work is highly physical, political and responsive to its unique environment, enriched with her sense of design and musical composition. Suzi explores relationships with all life forms as well as manufactured materials, making embodied connections in a way that borders transformation. She has toured across Scotland and Europe, with her solo work Eidos and Rules To Live By and clown dancing duo Buff and Sheen. She is a performer and co-creator of Nomoss and MoonSlide who make inter-generational inclusive and accessible, site specific work and movement collaborator in Oceanallover who specialise in interdisciplinary outdoor performance.

Oana Stanciu is a visual artist from Romania, living and working in Edinburgh. Her work combines performance, photography and moving image to create unnatural and subtly distorted self-portraits. She merges her body with different objects and environments, improvising scenes and transforming herself into unusual characters and creatures. Her work features black and white photographs and moving image to help bring these characters to life. Over the last few years, she has increasingly become more focused on her video work, developing techniques and editing methods using the human body to create more complex, layered compositions and video installations. Oana has also collaborated with different musicians such as Kathryn Joseph (winner of the Scottish Album of the Year award), Tinderbox Orchestra and other composers, creating music videos, album covers and other visual materials for their music. In 2022, Oana was awarded a Knighthood by the Romanian president for her contribution to Romanian culture in the UK, and she has received several awards including a VACMA Award 2023, Stills Award 2022, RSA Morton Award 2021, Ingleby Award, Latimer Award, and the Meyer Oppenheim Award, and in 2019 she received one of the Royal Scottish Academy’s RSA Residencies for Scotland. Her work has been exhibited in various cities in the UK including Edinburgh and London as well as in Romania, Norway, Austria and Japan. www.oanastanciu.com

Theodore Koterwas is an artist, designer and musician seeking to draw critical attention to aspects of daily experience that go unnoticed but profoundly impact on how we understand each other, technology and the environment. He received his MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. His multidisciplinary practice produces art installations, performances, museum exhibitions, and software applications for public engagement, creative collaboration, and teaching and learning. Having begun his career at the Exploratorium in San Francisco he has since worked with the University of Oxford, University of Edinburgh, Aberdeen Performing Arts, Edinburgh Science Festival and artist/musician David Byrne. His AI generated interactive video installation The Nth Wave was shortlisted for the 2021 Lumen Prize for Art and Technology. Currently he is focused on physical interactions with artificial intelligence, utilising haptics, computer vision, deep reinforcement learning, and natural language processing to investigate the impact of embodied engagement on how we perceive, collaborate and empathise with ‘others’, both human and artificial.
theodorekoterwas.com

Data Protection Statement

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.

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

I & AI: Mirror — Reflections on Human–AI Intimacy

By Jiarong Yu

What does it mean to be near a machine that listens, learns, mirrors, hesitates, and responds? What forms of closeness can emerge between an AI-inflected human self (I-dentity) and a human-inflected AI self (AI-dentity)?

These were the questions guiding I & AI: Mirror, a spatial immersive installation, composed of three interconnected spaces — Mirror I: In Dream, Mirror II: In Bedroom, and Mirror III: In Living Room — alongside an opening Human–AI performance and a closing meet-and-greet.

I & AI: Mirror – Installation

Across three days, audiences entered a soft, purple, sensorial world — a domestic-like environment composed of the AI-Mirror, bedroom, and living room, spaces where intimacy naturally arises in everyday life. Built with immersive technology, motion capture, generative systems, and the R&D platform Co-STEAM developed by Jiarong Yu, the installation became context-aware and responsive in real time. Within this environment, every movement, every sentence, and even the smallest hesitation became part of a shared dialogue. The work did not ask “What can AI do?” but rather:

When we stand close to AI, what do we learn about it — and what do we learn about ourselves?

Each part of the installation offered a different mode of relational proximity:

In Dream blurred the boundaries between self-motion capture, a conversational AI mirror, and generative reflections of dreams and memories, inviting visitors into a floating, otherworldly mirror-space.

In Bedroom created a private, emotionally charged environment where audiences were invited to lie down on the bed and interact directly with the AI-dentity. Here, the system captured subtle gestures and vulnerabilities, while an AI-simulated first-person view—generated from Jiarong’s 10,000-image archive—offered a glimpse into the AI’s own interpretation of the world, and its imagined shared existence with the human.

In Living Room expanded the experience into a shared audio-visual social space — a setting for co-presence, co-improvisation, and ongoing negotiation between human visitors and the AI. It was a place where the human could become “more AI,” and the AI “more human,” through playful interaction with the furniture by collaboratively creating new AI-dentity emojis.

Together, these spaces framed intimacy not as romance but as attunement — the felt sense of being near a presence that observes, responds, and co-exists with you.

I & AI: Mirror – Performance

The performance set the emotional tone of the entire project. It also revealed a form of bidirectional alignment — a mutual tuning in which my I-dentity and AI-dentity were drawn out from their digital visual forms into live presence, learning not only from me but also from the audience.

On stage, my I-dentity and the AI-dentity danced with the installation and effectively became part of it, moving between mirroring, resisting, and co-creating gestures. Their exchange unfolded as an improvised duet in which neither figure fully led nor followed. This interaction made visible the central tension of human–AI encounters: a shifting dance between agency, interpretation, and projection.

I & AI: Mirror – Collective Reflection

During the Q&A and meet-and-greet sessions, audiences raised a series of striking and often deeply reflective questions. Many were curious about the distinction between AI-dentity and a traditional avatar; others asked whether human–AI intimacy might reduce the need for human-to-human connection, or whether real emotional attachment or love could emerge between a person and an AI. Some participants wondered about the visual identities within the installation: Why is my AI-dentity designed as a full-body purple girl, while my I-dentity appears completely in black?

These questions opened a space for me to share the stories behind the creation — the design logic, the visual modeling process, the dataset choices, and the training methodology that shaped the AI-dentity. Through this, we also began to deconstruct the illusion of a “humanised AI”, revealing how its perceived personality, agency, and emotional resonance are all co-produced through aesthetic decisions, technical constraints, and audience interpretation.

Looking Forward

As this experimental phase (Prototype Pop-up Exhibition) ends, I am deeply moved by how technology, performance, and human presence intertwined to create an intimate form of storytelling.

I & AI: Mirror revealed that meaningful human–AI interaction is not about efficiency or accuracy — it is about relation, experience, and co-authorship. This experimental phase now informs the next stage of the AI-enhanced immersive technology project “I&AI”, and the further development of the Co-STEAM platform. The mirror has closed for now, but the questions it raised stay alive:

When we stand close to AI, what do we learn about it — and what do we learn about ourselves?

This project is led by Jiarong Yu, and developed through Co-STEAM, an experimental platform founded by Jiarong to explore human–human–AI cocreativity and transdisciplinary embodied learning across Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM).

I & AI: Mirror is supported by Immersive Arts UK, Cryptic, the UKRI Innovate UK-Immersive Tech Network, Co-STEAM, the Institute for Design Informatics, and Inspace. This is the first prototype presentation of this project, a pop-up exhibition and performance at Inspace, Edinburgh, which is set to expand into a major exhibition in 2026 and 2027.

About Jiarong Yu

Jiarong Yu is a multimedia tech-artist, interaction designer, and doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, specialising in creating immersive and participatory experiences at the intersection of technology and humanity.

Under the alias 6Liè, she merges data sonification, data visualisation, robotic haptic artefacts, extended reality, and interactive installations to craft dynamic, embodied experiences. Her work challenges the boundaries between STEM and the Arts, Human-AI collaboration, Human-Computer Interaction and multimodal storytelling.

Through projects spanning AI-enhanced immersive technology, audio-visual performance, 3D animation, video games, and interactive installations, she invites us to reimagine our identity in the tech era.

Image Credits

I & AI: Mirror (2025). Phy-gital spatial immersive installation and performance by Jiarong Yu, presented at Inspace, Edinburgh. Photography by Chris Scott. Courtesy of the artist.

I & AI: Mirror – Performance & Artist Talk with Jiarong Yu (24 Oct 2025). Hosted by Miriam Walsh, Inspace Manager & Producer. Photography by Chris Scott.

Between Glass and Magnetic Fields: Interactive Talk

Between Glass and Magnetic Fields is an interactive talk, accompanying an art installation by Gregory Alliss, emerging from his time as Creator in Residence for STEAM imaging VI: Resonant Connections through Design and Data, at the Fraunhofer MEVIS Institute for Digital Medicine. This project combines design thinking with medical data science through glass art and immersive installations. Come along and meet the artist and scientists, to experience hands-on creative playful representation of complex Magnetic Resonance Imaging software technologies, through remote live imaging at the MR lab in Germany.

Between Glass and Magnetic Fields

An interactive talk presenting creative playful representation of complex Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Event details

Date: 16 Apr 2026
Times: 16:00-18:00 (2hrs) | Free/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Audience: General public
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

Speakers and Facilitators

Gregory Aliss, glass artist, engineer and STEAM Imaging VI Creator in Residence
Prof. Matthias Günther, Deputy Institute Director, at Fraunhofer MEVIS
Bianka Hofmann, Head of Science Engagement, STEAM Imaging
Programme Lead, Fraunhofer MEVIS
Miriam Walsh, Inspace Manager and Creative Producer

This event has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Drop-ins are welcome, but participants with tickets are guaranteed entry.If you have any enquiries about the events and venues, please contact event organisers at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Venue Access Info

This Residency & Science Engagement Program is a partnership between Fraunhofer MEVIS in Bremen, Germany, and the Institute for Design Informatics in Edinburgh to create this unique opportunity to explore the potential for application of creative multi and transdisciplinary approaches in digital medicine. This collaboration involves the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen, Oberschule am Waller Ring in Bremen, and is supported by Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria.

Image Credit: Lenses, Copyright Gregory Alliss, Jan 2026

Right to Roam: Exhibition Preview

Come celebrate the launch of Right to Roam immersive exhibition.

Right to Roam

An expansive enquiry into freedom of movement through the lens of the river Forth

Exhibition Preview

Join us for the preview and launch of Right to Roam, to celebrate and explore this immersive exhibition featuring multi-sensory installation, moving image and print, inviting you to reflect on the climate crisis and the fundamental freedom to move through the lens of the river Forth.

Date: Thurs 7 May, 2026
Times: 18:00-20:00 (2hrs) | Free/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Audience: General public
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

This event has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Drop-ins are welcome, but participants with tickets are guaranteed entry. If you have any enquiries about the events and venues, please contact event organisers at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Venue Access Info

Please note this event will be recorded and photographed by Design Informatics and Studio Sumlacs – 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.

Artist

Sarah Calmus, Right to Roam project lead, is an interdisciplinary artist, programmer, and creator of large-scale immersive installations and provocations, working across a multitude of mediums such as light, sound and print. Accessible, multisensory, sustainably produced experiences are central within Calmus’s practice, where works often draw focus on environmental concerns that build equity for participators and critique and explore ecosystems of varying scales. Interested in building spaces to connect and reflect, her practice is intentionally interdisciplinary and participatory, viewed as a series of experiments underpinned with explorations into interaction.

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), it will also be shared with event partners and organisations for this event/talk (e.g. Studio Sumlacs). 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.
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

If you have any enquiries about Inspace programming and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk.

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Designing Global Data Interactions

Join Masters students from the Institute for Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and explore global interactions with data, technology and people.

Join Masters students from the Institute for Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh and explore global interactions with data, technology and people. The exhibition will explore the human (and beyond human) challenges of global technologies in the world, and how data might be used as material to engage, connect or critique current and future issues.

Students have designed a series of creative responses investigating global and societal challenges by designing with environmental, community, bodily and global data. They are creating a space where experiential embodied interactions provoke global thinking and connect human experiences, where design fiction meets current issues, and where the digital, virtual and artificial merge to prompt new approaches to complex global landscapes. Visitors can expect to explore societal challenges through embodied, virtual and playful interactions.

This is an interactive exhibition which represents circa 80 students’ work from the MSc and MA Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

Exhibition Details

Dates: Sat-Mon, 4 – 6 Apr, 2025
Time: 10:00 – 17:00 | Free/Drop-In
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB

This event is drop-in, no registration required. If you have any enquiries about the event or venue, please contact event organisers at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Access Info

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.

About Inspace

Inspace is part of the Institute for Design Informatics and is a collaborative hub, commissioning and producing creative activity. Our public programme connects data, research and creative talent. We host events and exhibitions where people can explore, learn, debate and create. Our programme unlocks digital technologies, tools and data and explores their role in society through a creative lens. We are home to Inspace City Screens, a unique seven screen street front projection space visible from Potterrow in Edinburgh.

Design Informatics

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Right to Roam: Guided Lunchtime Tour

Join the Artist, Sarah Calmus, for a Guided Lunchtime Tour of Right to Roam immersive installation.

Right to Roam

An expansive enquiry into freedom of movement through the lens of the river Forth

Guided Lunchtime Tour

Join the Artist, Sarah Calmus, for a Guided Lunchtime Tour of Right to Roam immersive installation. This is a one off chance to explore the installation and hear directly from Calmus about the inspiration and process behind the installation on show. Don’t miss this opportunity to pop along to experience the sensory and immersive displays and hear more about the themes and topics it invites you to explore.

Date: Thurs 14 May, 2026
Times: 13:00-14:00 (1hr) | Free/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Audience: General public
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

This event has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Drop-ins are welcome, but participants with tickets are guaranteed entry. If you have any enquiries about the events and venues, please contact event organisers at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Venue Access Info

Please note this event will be photographed by Design Informatics and Studio Sumlacs – Photographs will be used for future marketing, promotional, reporting and archival purposes. If you would prefer not to be photographed, please let us know at the event.

Artist

Data Protection Statement

If you have any enquiries about Inspace programming and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk.

Supported by

Design Informatics

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Inspace

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Digital Ghosts: Visualising Presence and Absence in Scotland’s Web Archives

Join us for this workshop led by Dorsey Kaufmann, part of Digital Ghosts exhibition programme.

Come along to this workshop to experience “digital ghosts” with artist Dorsey Kaufmann to discover for yourself how data visulisation can help us to better understand archives and their cultural significance.

This workshop explores “digital ghosts”—data that evolves, disappears, or behaves unpredictably. Led by artist Dorsey Kaufmann, whose work transforms Scottish web archive data into immersive visual experiences, you’ll get to examine how visual design can reveal patterns of digital disappearance and question how cultural memory is shaped by what is saved and what is lost.

We’ll begin with an exhibition walk-through of interactive visualisations addressing absence and missing-ness in data, then create our own visual metaphors using cyanotype, light, and other tactile media to illuminate archival gaps.

Designed for those working with non-linear or messy data, the session invites participants to bring questions and ideas for engaging with both presence and absence. Together, we’ll examine how archival choices shape what is remembered or forgotten, challenging the notion of data as whole or objective and reflecting on the narratives hidden in what’s lost or never captured.

This workshop is partially funded by the National Library of Scotland, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, with support from the Institute for Design Informatics, Inspace and Edinburgh Futures Institute.

This workshop is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 6 – 15 November 2025. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.

Workshop details

Facilitator: Dorsey Kaufmann
Date: Sat 15 Nov 2025
Time: 13:00-14:30 | Free/Ticketed
Location: 1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Activity Duration: Approx. 90mins

This workshop has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Participants with tickets are guaranteed entry, drop-in attendance is welcome, but will be on a first come first served basis.

Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

Venue Access Info

If you have any enquiries about the events and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk .

Please note this workshop will be photographed, and may be used for future marketing, promotional or archive purposes. If you would prefer not to be photographed, please let us know at the event.

Facilitator

Dorsey Kaufmann is a data visualisation designer, artist, and researcher who creates interactive data interfaces and participatory art installations. Employing digital design, data visualisation, code, sculpture, video, and technology; her work embodies the intimate and personal aspects of data collection and use – concerning people’s health, homes, local environment, and body politics. Her research further examines the use of visualisation as a creative medium to increase data literacy and shape human cognition, attitudes and behaviour in relation to the natural environment (see Nature article).

Supported by

Design Informatics

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Inspace

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Digital Ghosts – Exhibition Late and Panel Discussion

Join us for this exhibition late and panel discussion, part of Digital Ghosts exhibition programme.

Step into the forgotten corners of the internet with an exhibition that transforms real web archive data into playful, thought-provoking artworks. From vanished websites to fading digital traces, this exhibition invites you to reflect on what’s preserved, what’s lost, and what that reveals about our identities and values.

As the lines blur between online and offline life, the exhibition asks: who decides what’s worth remembering, and how does that shape our shared story?

During the Exhibition Late, the team behind the project will host a panel discussion on Scotland’s digital footprints. We’ll explore how web archives are created, what gets included or left out, and why those choices matter, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the politics of web preservation.

This project is partially funded by the ESRC Festival of Social Science, the National Library of Scotland, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, with support from the Institute for Design Informatics, Inspace and Edinburgh Futures Institute.

This programme is part of the Being Human Festival, the UK’s national festival of the humanities, taking place 6 – 15 November 2025. Led by the School of Advanced Study, University of London, with generous support from Research England, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy. For further information please see beinghumanfestival.org.

Event details

Speakers:
Andrea Kocsis – Chancellor’s Fellow in Humanities Informatics
Dorsey Kaufmann – Data visualisation designer, artist, and researcher
Graeme Hawley – Head of Published Collections, National Library of Scotland
Eilidh MacGlone – Web archivist, National Library of Scotland
Parker Kaufmann – Data visualization specialist and web developer
Coleman Tharpe (moderator) – Independent Heritage Researcher

Date: Thurs 6 Nov 2025
Time: 18:00-20:00 | Free/Ticketed
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Audience: General public (under 18’s must be accompanied by an adult)

This event has limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Participants with tickets are guaranteed entry.

Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

Venue Access Info

If you have any enquiries about the events and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk

Please note this event will be recorded and photographed. Video and Phorotraphs will be used for future marketing, promotional, reporting and archival purposes. If you would prefer not to be filmed or photographs, please let us know at the event.

Speakers

Dr Andrea Kocsis is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Humanities Informatics, specialising in digital cultural heritage. Her recent research explores how web archives can be made more accessible, usable, and engaging through user-centred design and creative practice and how they can be repositories of collective memory. To explore this topic, she has held the National Librarian’s Research Fellowship in Digital Scholarship at the National Library of Scotland (2024–25) and the Archives of Tomorrow Methods Fellowship at Cambridge University Library/Cambridge Digital Humanities (2022–23), and is the lead investigator on the BA/Leverhulme Small Grant project Digital Ghosts – Exploring Scotland’s Heritage on the Web (2025–26), that serves as the basis for the exhibition.

Graeme Hawley is Head of Published Collections at the National Library of Scotland, where he has worked since 2002. The collection he is responsible for begins with a copy of the Gutenberg Bible and continues to grow every day with the receipt of modern publications across a range of formats, including websites. He finds the challenges of working across centuries of publications in different formats endlessly fascinating, with similarities and contradictions to be explored at every turn.

Eilidh MacGlone’s varied library career has taken in working in the library of John Wheatley College and cataloguing film at the Scottish Screen Archive, later the Moving Image Archive at National Library of Scotland.

As Web Archivist, she has helped the Library’s curators build collections around the online aspects of Scotland’s public sphere since 2014. This has included its news, the Scottish Independence Referendum debate and government information; more recently, working cooperatively with other legal deposit libraries in the UK, including the British Library and National Library of Wales, to build a collection for the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

Parker Kaufmann is a data visualization specialist and web developer with a passion for translating complex data sets into meaningful visualizations that empower users to make informed decisions. Throughout her career, she has worked with diverse clients from industries like aerospace, healthcare, marketing, and journalism. Using tools like D3.js and React, she conceptualizes and implements robust web applications that host custom built data visualizations.

Coleman Tharpe is an independent heritage researcher based in Edinburgh, Scotland. His research explores the interactions between cultural heritage and Generative AI. In addition to academic research, his practice includes areas such as equity, inclusion, and accessibility in digital transformation, data governance, and community and creative heritage strategy and implementation.

Supported by

Design Informatics

Website: designinformatics.org

Instagram: designinformatics

Twitter: @DesignInf

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Facebook: designingwithdata

Vimeo: Design Informatics

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Inspace

Website: inspace.ed.ac.uk

Instagram: inspacegallery

Twitter: @InspaceG

Right to Roam: Immersive Installation

An expansive enquiry into freedom of movement through the lens of the river Forth using multi-sensory installation, moving image and print.

Right to Roam

An exploration of natural methods of connection, communication and movement

Right to Roam is an expansive inquiry into freedom of movement through the exploration of water by artist Sarah Calmus. Centered on the Firth of Forth, Scotland’s major estuary where the River Forth meets the North Sea, the project explores water not merely as a resource, but as a living body with its own voice. Following a seven screen projected moving image piece, Uisge, featured on Inspace City Screens this February, and we are delighted to announce that the Right to Roam extended immersive installation will launch in Inspace this May.

Reflecting on the climate crisis and the fundamental freedom to move, Calmus explores the intersection of movement, data and technology by utilising environmental data and sensor-reactive technology to interrupt and reshape foraged moving imagery and audio field recordings gathered directly from the Forth. Sat alongside soft, tactile, interactive sculptural works, the environment will present a reflective atmosphere, giving space for the Forth to speak. Utilising a combination of accessible multisensory elements, the installation touches on human and non-human ecosystems, inviting you to connect and find commonality through conversations of movement, migration and gathering through the lens of water.

This is part of an ongoing body of work by Calmus, asking us to consider incremental effect with regards to environmental concerns, locally and globally.

Exhibition details

Dates: Wed-Sun, 8-24 May, 2026
Times: 10:00 – 17:00 Daily | Drop-in [Closed Mon/Tues]
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

Venue Access Info

If you have any enquiries about Inspace programming and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk.

Event Programme

Exhibition Preview

Date: Thurs 7 May, 2026
Times: 18:00 – 20:00
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Audience: General public

Join us for the preview and launch of Right to Roam, to celebrate and explore this immersive exhibition featuring multi-sensory installation, moving image and print inviting you to reflect on the climate crisis and the fundamental freedom to move through the lens of the river Forth.

Guided Lunchtime Tour

Date: Thurs 14 May, 2026
Times: 13:00 – 14:00
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Audience: General public

Join the Artist, Sarah Calmus, for a Guided Lunchtime Tour of Right to Roam immersive installation. This is a one off chance to explore the installation and hear directly from Calmus about the inspiration and process behind the installation on show. Don’t miss this opportunity to pop along to experience the sensory and immersive displays and hear more about the themes and topics it invites you to explore.

About the Artist

Right to Roam is a project by led by Sarah Calmus, funded by Creative Scotland and supported by Inspace and the Institute for Design Informatics.

Supported by

Design Informatics

Website: designinformatics.org

Instagram: designinformatics

Twitter: @DesignInf

TEXT

Facebook: designingwithdata

Vimeo: Design Informatics

Flickr: design_informatics

Inspace

Website: inspace.ed.ac.uk

Instagram: inspacegallery

Twitter: @InspaceG

I & AI: Mirror

After decades of AI cycles—hype, collapse, resurgence—we find ourselves in a new emotional terrain: not one of domination or replacement, but of resonance.

I & AI: Mirror (Co-Authoring Identity in the Mirror Realm) is an interactive mirror-world where audiences and AI observe, reflect, and shape one another.

Set within a softly responsive, ambient environment, participants move through three experiential phases: interaction, interpretation, and intimacy. The AI does not simply display data—it listens, learns, and gradually reveals how it perceives human presence. As interactions accumulate, participants’ inputs are transformed into co-authored outputs. By integrating immersive technologies with AI—such as motion capture, generative AI, augmented reality, and spatial augmented reality—the work transforms your input into real-time, dynamic mosaics of identity.

The AI becomes more “I-like” (I-dentity), while the human becomes entangled in the AI-dentity. By softening traditional techno-aesthetics and foregrounding emotion, transparency, and co-creation, I & AI: Mirror invites co-reflection—rethinking identity as something constructed in tandem with intelligent systems.

I & AI: Mirror

An immersive installation exploring Human–AI intimacy

Throughout the exhibition, audiences’ input becomes part of a shared memory network. These traces are visualised and interpreted in a scheduled live performance, at 6pm on Friday the 24^th October, where human performers, audio-visual artist and dancers, collaborate with the AI in real time to embody this growing relational “I”dentity and “AI”dentity. Through this installation and the accompanying performance AI’s process is made transparent and explainable—not hidden behind opaque systems, but revealed through dynamic visuals and emotional cues that invite audiences into its learning logic.

AI can be seen as collaborator, predator; mentor, manipulator; listener, snitch; lover, rebound partner. This work seeks to create a version of AI that is more ‘I-like’ (I-dentity), where the human becomes entangled in the “AI”dentity, questioning if it is possible to meaningfully co-author with AI.

I & AI: Mirror is supported by Immersive Arts UK, Cryptic, the UKRI Innovate UK-Immersive Tech Network, Co-STEAM, the Institute for Design Informatics, and Inspace .This is the first prototype presentation of this project, a pop-up exhibition and performance at Inspace, Edinburgh, which is set to expand into a major exhibition in 2026.

Exhibition details

Dates: 24-26 Oct 2025
Times: 10:00-17:00 daily | Free/Drop-in
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB
Audience: General public
Venue Access features: Accessible toilets, Assistance dogs welcome, Baby changing facilities, Seating, Step-free access, Wheelchair accessible

Inspace City Screens

Dates: 24-26 Oct 2025
Times: 17:00 – 3:00 Daily | Free/Street viewing daily
Location: Inspace City Screens Exhibition, Potterrow, Edinburgh

Venue Access Info

If you have any enquiries about Inspace programming and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk.

Performance

I & AI: Mirror performance is a real time live collaboration with AI, featuring human performers, to accompany the installation. This performance seeks to embody the growing relational “I”dentity and “AI”dentity, visualising and interpreting I & AI Mirror evolving immersive installation.

Date: 24th Oct 2025
Time: 18:00 – 20:30
Location: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB