Join us for a captivating journey through time and innovation at Bayes Centre and Inspace, located within the University of Edinburgh’s city centre campus. As part of Edinburgh Doors Open Day 2025 programme, “Windows to the Past, Doors to the Future” this event invites you to explore the diverse tapestry of buildings and infrastructure at the Bayes Centre complex that shapes innovation.
Come along to this event to experience guided tours and celebrate the award-winning architecture of the Bayes Centre complex, offering a unique opportunity to appreciate how architectural heritage merges with and supports current and future innovation.
The Bayes Centre is the University of Edinburgh’s Innovation Hub for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. The technical strengths brought together in the Bayes Centre build on world-leading academic excellence in the mathematical, computational, engineering, and natural sciences in the University of Edinburgh’s College of Science and Engineering. The Bayes Centre offers a new kind of collaborative, multidisciplinary proving ground where we develop innovative technological solutions for the benefit of society.
Inspace is a dynamic exhibition and events space, part of the Institute for Design Informatics, which focuses on fusing design and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies. Learn about the cutting-edge facilities at Inspace, including interactive technologies and pioneering design features that inspire creativity and exploration through connecting art, design, research and technology. Venture behind the scenes to visit our studio and workshop where student and staff create prototypes and experiences that make real to people the ideas that underpin the data society, and engage with multimedia displays and hands-on activities that highlight a snippet of the Institutes research.
Event details
Date: Sunday 28th September 2025 Time: 10:00 – 14:00 Locations: Bayes Centre, Inspace, Design Informatics Studio and Workshop
Exhibitors
As part of Doors Open Day 2025, Inspace will present a selection of research projects, these exhibits will be excerpts of current research being explored by researchers at the Institute for Design Informatics. More details can be found on our Doors Open Day exhibition page.
Tours
First tour 10.15 am Last tour 1.15 pm Tours begin every 45 minutes
Drop-in visitors are welcome to visit displays, interactive activities and exhibitions across both venues, but please note, that official tours have a maximum capacity and attendance without a ticket cannot be guaranteed.
Route: Starts at the main entrance to the Bayes Centre. Attendees are taken up to the Bayes Centre roof top and then will be guided back downstairs while being provided with a brief history of the Centre before arriving in the Atrium with the robotics lab. Attendees are then taken for a Tour of Inspace, the Design Informatics studio and workshop. Attendees are welcome to stay in Inspace to view pop-up displays.
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.
This exhibition is the outcome of an interdisciplinary project led by Dr Andrea Kocsis, in collaboration with multimedia artist Dorsey Kaufmann. Together, they assembled a team of archivists and librarians from the National Library of Scotland along with visualization developer Parker Kaufmann and Informatics MSc (Master of Science) students to explore novel computational and creative visualization techniques that enable public engagement with web archives.
Using exploratory visualization and interaction techniques, the exhibition pieces seek to uncover insights within the data and craft compelling visual narratives to engage wider audiences in the cultural significance of past, present and future web archives.
Three of the works were first created by Informatics MSc students Mansi Manoj, Qianhui Meng, and Shuyu Zhang under the supervision of Dorsey Kaufmann. Kaufmann and Parker recently launched their data visualization studio Feeling Data, which adapted and expanded the students’ projects for public interaction, as well as producing two new works. The ‘Digital Ghosts’ centrepiece is an artist commission in which Kaufmann experiments with physicalising web archive data through UV projection onto cyanotype.
Digital Ghosts
An exhibition that transforms real web archive data into playful, thought-provoking artworks
If you have any enquiries about Inspace programming and the venue, please contact us at designinformatics@ed.ac.uk
Exhibition Video
Featured Artworks
Digital Ghosts
Dorsey Kaufmann and Feeling Data Centrepiece commission where Dorsey Kaufmann experiments with physicalizing web archive data through UV projection onto cyanotype. Explore the centre piece here
Digital Coordinates
Parker Kaufmann and Feeling Data
Geospatial visualization where Parker Kaufmann explores web archive data by location. Explore the work here
Three of the works were first created by Informatics MSc students Mansi Manoj, Qianhui Meng, and Shuyu Zhang under the supervision of Dorsey Kaufmann.
Life and Death of Music
Mansi Manoj and Feeling Data Studio
The interactive and browsable visualisation highlighted the scale of online decay in music collections through the metaphor of falling.
Sites: Surfaced or Submerged
Qianhui Meng and Feeling Data Studio
Through embodied interaction via motion tracking, visitors could explore the growth of the collection by topic, recognising that even the most systematic curatorial approach could not escape curatorial bias. Explore the work here
Pandemic in the Archives!
Shuyu Zhang and Feeling Data Studio
This interactive visualisation demonstrated that during a crisis, such as COVID-19, online contents changes so rapidly that, without extremely frequent archiving, important discourse disappears from our future archives. Explore the work here
Event Programme
Exhibition Late and Panel Discussion
During the Exhibition Late, the team behind the project will host a panel discussion on Scotland’s digital footprints.
Where architectural heritage meets technology driven futures
Join us for a captivating journey through time and innovation at Bayes Centre and Inspace, located within the University of Edinburgh’s city centre campus.
As part of Edinburgh Doors Open Day 2025 programme, “Windows to the Past, Doors to the Future” this event invites you to explore the diverse tapestry of buildings and infrastructure at the Bayes Centre complex that shapes innovation.
About our spaces
The Bayes Centre is the University of Edinburgh’s Innovation Hub for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. The technical strengths brought together in the Bayes Centre build on world-leading academic excellence in the mathematical, computational, engineering, and natural sciences in the University of Edinburgh’s College of Science and Engineering. The Bayes Centre offers a new kind of collaborative, multidisciplinary proving ground where we develop innovative technological solutions for the benefit of society.
Inspace is a dynamic exhibition and events space, part of the Institute for Design Informatics, which focuses on fusing design and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies. Learn about the cutting-edge facilities at Inspace, including interactive technologies and pioneering design features that inspire creativity and exploration through connecting art, design, research and technology. Venture behind the scenes to visit our studio and workshop where student and staff create prototypes and experiences that make real to people the ideas that underpin the data society, and engage with multimedia displays and hands-on activities that highlight a snippet of the Institutes research.
Our spaces will be open to the public from 10am – 2pm, you can access the open spaces for free without booking to experience the activities on offer. However, if you would like a tour of the buildings then please book a space on one of the tours.
Event details
Date: Sunday 28th September 2024 Time: 10:00 – 14:00 Locations: Bayes Centre, Inspace, Design Informatics Studio and Workshop
Exhibitors
As part of Doors Open Day 2025, Inspace will present a selection of research projects. These pop-ups explore themes relating to data and artificial intelligence (AI), and care and all are excerpts of current research being explored by researchers at the Institute for Design Informatics.
More details to be announced in September…
Tours
First tour 10.15 am Last tour 1.15 pm Tours begin every 45 minutes
Schedule:
10:15 [Bayes] / 10:35 [Inspace]
11:00 [Bayes] / 11:20 [Inspace]
11:45 [Bayes] / 12:05 [Inspace]
12:30 [Bayes] / 12:50 [Inspace]
13:15 [Bayes] / 13:35 [Inspace]
The loop takes approximately 40mins. Book tickets using the link below
Route: Starts at the main entrance to the Bayes Centre. Attendees are taken up to the Bayes Centre roof top and then will be guided back downstairs while being provided with a brief history of the Centre before arriving in the Atrium with the robotics lab. Attendees are then taken for a Tour of Inspace, the Design Informatics studio and workshop. Attendees are welcome to stay in Inspace to view pop-up displays.
Please make us aware of any mobility requirements you may have prior to attending the event.
Please note pictures will be taken at this event and shared via social media. If you are in attendance and do not wish to be in any pictures, please find a member of the Bayes Staff and let them know.
We will do our best to meet any requirements that will allow you to fully participate in this event. Please let us know in advance if you have any special requirements such as religious or medical dietary needs, advance access to presentational materials or alternative presentational formats such as Braille or large print, or any access needs such as wheelchair access.
An exhibition of new Art Commissions by Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) presenting seven outstanding UK-based artists aimed at exploring and enriching the responsible AI ecosystem through artistic expression, and premiered for the 2025 Edinburgh Summer Festivals.
Graphic designed by Cate Sutton
Tipping Point explores how artists can help us more wisely respond to the present realities and near-future horizons of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Featuring seven newly commissioned artworks from across the UK, the exhibition presents new ways of thinking about today’s AI, the futures we want and the communities needed to build it. Artists include Louise Ashcroft, Julie Freeman, Wesley Goatley, Identity 2.0, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above & Below.
Commissioned artworks, which range from digital installations to sculptural interventions, zines and comedy sketches, are set to address themes that reimagine AI uptake, inspire activism and resilience, and showcase artistic creativity in the field. These themes align with BRAID’s mission to build public awareness, break down structural barriers in AI, and reimagine responsible AI perspectives and practices, providing a platform for artists to share their visions and for audiences to reflect on the role of AI in our society.
Representing more than an exhibition, the project is a step towards better, more thoughtful conversations about the future of AI in our lives, and we look forward to working with the artists across the year to bring these conversations to life.
This art commissioning programme is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and delivered by BRAID in partnership with Inspace at the Institute for Design Informatics, with support from Better Images of AI.
Identity 2.0 is a creative studio imagining better digital futures. Their work explores inclusive stories about our relationship to technology.
Since 2018, they’ve transformed research into creative mediums and playful knowledge spaces and have worked with Stop Killer Robots, The Royal Society, and Museum of London. They have also spoken at the World Wide Web Foundation, University of Oxford and University Arts of London about curating exhibitions, using art for social change, and creative entrepreneurship.
Julie Freeman works with natural living systems and emergent technologies. Her large scale installations, sound sculptures and online artworks have, since the early 1990s, pioneered her conceptual and critical approach to working with sound and real-time data as living and malleable art materials.
Julie has shown work at leading institutions including the V&A, the ICA, Modern Art Oxford, the Barbican and the Science Museum, as well as internationally. She has been recognised by many organisations including the BBC, The Guardian, and New Scientist.
Julie founded the Open Data Institute’s art programme ‘Data as Culture’ in 2012. She is a TED Fellow, co-founder of Fine Acts, and runs Translating Nature, a digital and data art studio. Julie is the inventor of Sonaforms® – sculptural sonic furniture that offers a new way to experience sound through touch.
Kiki is a visual artist and multimedia storyteller based out of Birmingham. She has a degree in Design for Art Direction from the University of the Arts, and over five years of experience in content creation for TV, film, and social media. Specialising in visual communication, Kiki uses her experience of public engagement in science, cultural organising and creative placemaking to explore the intersection of art direction and interaction design within communications, firmly believing that storytelling can drive positive change.
Kiki is dedicated to promoting equitable and inclusive creative experiences for all and takes a culturally responsive approach to producing engaging media that resonates with Black communities in the UK, in particular. She is committed to uplifting Black Women in their communities to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to participate fully in society.
Speaking fiction to power, Louise Ashcroft’s work meddles with the bizarre logic of late capitalism and playfully addresses its social issues. Her recent film ‘What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting’ (2024) is a research-comedy foray into the fertility industry’s inequalities and her own queer journey to non-parenthood. A related project ‘No Kids Nursery Rhymes’ (2024-5) surveyed 180 childfree (by choice or otherwise) people, turning their complex experiences into catchy songs, which were sung by a choir of non-parents. In other work, Louise is anarchically redesigning St.Peter’s School Huntingdon in partnership with Wysing Arts Centre and hundreds of pupils who are making animated cardboard dioramas.
Past projects have involved guerrilla residencies in shopping centres, a generative storytelling coat with 50 pockets which turns feely trash into collectively improvised fables, and a collab with recycling plant workers in Exeter searching for the dark sublime of landfill by making glitchy e-waste instruments.
Rachel Maclean has spent the last decade showcasing her ground-breaking work in galleries, museums, film festivals and on television. Working across a variety of media, including video, digital print, paintings and VR, she makes complex and layered works that reference politics, fairy tales, celebrity culture and more.
She has shown her work widely, both in the UK and internationally, receiving critical acclaim in the spheres of film and visual art. Her major exhibitions include solo shows at Tate Britain and National Gallery, London; Arsenal Contemporary, New York; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany; and KWM Art Centre, Beijing. Maclean represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale in 2017 with her film commission Spite Your Face.
In 2013, Maclean was awarded the prestigious Margaret Tait Award. She has been twice shortlisted for the Jarman Award.
Studio Above&Below is an award-winning art and technology practice founded by Daria Jelonek (DE) and Perry-James Sugden (UK) after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Grounded in research-based methodologies, their work bridges the gaps between humans, machines, and our umwelt, exploring how media art can foster more meditative, healing, and sustainable interactions with our surroundings.
Since its founding in 2018, the duo has specialised in creating immersive artworks that combine Mixed Realities (XR), digital art, and data systems to make invisible phenomena tangible, challenging predetermined technological structures. Their large-scale public artworks integrate advanced technologies, such as real-time environmental data and meditative scenography, to give our umwelt a voice and reveal the unseen.
Wesley Goatley is a critical artist and researcher based in London, UK. His work critically interrogates the myths and manipulations of the AI industry and its relations to society, geopolitics, and the climate crisis, and how art practice can intervene.
He has given talks on his practice and research at events such as Global Art Forum Singapore, the McLuhan Center for Culture and Technology in Toronto, CTM Festival Berlin, and the European Data Forum Eindhoven.
His installations, performances, and films have been shown at international venues including Eyebeam in New York, Berghain in Berlin, The Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. He has a 25-year practice as an experimental performer and musician, including work for labels such as Kranky (US) and Southern (UK).
BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) is a 6-year national research programme funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, led by The University of Edinburgh in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute and the BBC. It is co-directed by Shannon Vallor and Ewa Luger, working alongside a team of co-investigators representing the breadth of the Arts and Humanities.
In the Institute for Design Informatics, we fuse design and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies. We create prototypes and experiences that make real to people the ideas that underpin the data society, and aim to ensure that new technologies sustain and enhance human values.
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.
An exhibition of new Art Commissions by BRAID funded project CREA-TEC: Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives presenting three UK-based artists aimed at exploring how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies impact perceptions and values of authenticity, and premiered for the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Still image from The Nth Wave by Theodore Koterwas
AI-generated content is reshaping how we perceive truth and authenticity. From viral deep fakes to AI-altered political videos designed to manipulate public opinion, digital authenticity is increasingly uncertain. AI tools can even rewrite personal history, generating images of moments that never existed or altering past memories. The artworks presented in Authenticity Unmasked exhibition will challenge our understanding of authenticity, engaging audiences in questions such as: when does authenticity in digital content matter to us? What influences our perception of what is real or fabricated? What shapes our trust in human-made creations?
This Commission programme is led by CREA-TEC (“Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives”), a research project at the University of Edinburgh conducted in collaboration with Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to enhance transparency and access to the provenance history of digital media.
Exhibition Details
Artists: Georgia Gardner, Kinnari Saraiya, dmstfctn Dates: Mon-Sun, 7 – 17 Aug, 2025 Time: 10:00 – 17:00 | Free/Drop-In Location: G.07 at University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum
Exploring how Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies impact perceptions and values of authenticity
Featured artists
Image provided by Georgia Gardner
Georgia Gardner
Georgia Gardner is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher from Scotland, working with research-driven performance, video, sound, and writing. Georgia’s practice explores embodiment, (dis)obedience, and intersecting forms of reproduction that create a social template for success. This template instigates a rhythm of other-oriented striving and quiets self-conceptions of worthiness. Queering this template that often correlates otherness with failure, Georgia’s practice spends time with our everyday, embodied, and empathetic rebellions.
“I am interested in researching how the central concepts of my practice interact with the developing technological ecology in the arts. Particularly, I am thinking about technomorality and how my artistic values—empathy, embodiment, and introspection—conflict with artificial production.” https://georgiagardner.com/
Image provided by Kinnari Saraiya
Kinnari Saraiya Kinnari Saraiya (b. Bombay, based in London) is an artist, curator, writer and thinker of the colonial present. She works within the gaps in knowledge, the inaccuracies of interpretations, the mistranslations of a text, where myth weaves around a historical narrative forcing the collision of pre-humanist thought and posthumanist desire. Through the recovery and binding of ancient and new tools, resources, and technologies, her work constructs a portal, a time capsule that helps define, find, create, escape, and imagine a fluid future. “I’m really excited to be part of this commission, experimenting with artificial intelligence, algorithms, and archives to build speculative stories and challenge how we remember, interpret, and imagine new futures.”
dmstfctn, (f.k.a Demystification Committee), is a London-based duo formed by Oliver Smith and Francesco Tacchini, working with installation, performance, films, and video games. Their work has focused on opaque systems of technology and power, most recently looking at anomalies in artificial intelligence. dmstfctn often directly involve audiences in their work, inviting them into the ‘demystification’ of systems by replicating and replaying them together, and into their ‘remystification’ by building worlds, characters and myths atop them. They have performed and exhibited internationally in venues such as Berghain, Serpentine, HKW and Onassis, and at festivals such as Unsound, CTM and transmediale. “We’ve been searching for the deceptive characters role-played by AI systems for the last few years. We look forward to think back and think further on this with a new research community.”
CREA-TEC (“Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives”), a research project at the University of Edinburgh conducted in collaboration with Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to enhance transparency and access to the provenance history of digital media. CREA-TEC is supported by the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme with funds received from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) is a 6-year national research programme funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, led by The University of Edinburgh in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute and the BBC. It is co-directed by Shannon Vallor and Ewa Luger, working alongside a team of co-investigators representing the breadth of the Arts and Humanities.
In the Institute for Design Informatics, we fuse design and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies. We create prototypes and experiences that make real to people the ideas that underpin the data society, and aim to ensure that new technologies sustain and enhance human values.
An exhibition of digital experiences which reimagine and reconfigure Edinburgh’s George IV Bridge through a ‘digital excavation’ of the once-hidden spaces and imaginaries of this urban artefact.
Counter Archaeologies of the City-to-Come is an exhibition of digital experiences which reimagine and reconfigure Edinburgh’s George IV Bridge through a ‘digital excavation’ of the once-hidden spaces and imaginaries of this urban artefact. The digital experiences will propose new stories and myths which imagine and speculate alternative futures for the monumental civic infrastructure of the bridge and the wider urban context. The exhibition is produced by students, staff and researchers from Edinburgh College of Art, exploring the potential of digital technologies as tools for world-building im/possible futures.
This project is led by the Image|Imaging|Interiors research cluster at Edinburgh College of Art, and is supported by supported by the Student Experience Grant, Inspace and the Institue for Design Informatics. The exhibition is part of the open program for Architecture Fringe 2025, the inter/national festival of design, architecture and the built environment.
The Image|Imaging|Interior research cluster explores new crossdisplinary practices and frameworks of knowledge-making through which to interrogate the interior, its image, and its imaging. The contemporary interior, its design and fabrication, is a 3-dimensional space that is increasingly smeared across and embedded upon the 2-dimensional screen. In the digital image-based society, a range of technological platforms collapse space and reconfigure the interior as a mediated artefact circulated in a multitude of overlapping and colliding virtual and actual 2d/3d conditions. The Image|Imaging|Interior research cluster proposes timely and urgent investigations to explore how virtual and physical spaces, and their design and fabrication, directly engage and inform each other, to present arrangements at the interstice of 2d and 3d, image and actual.
The Image|Imaging|Interior research cluster collaborates across Edinburgh College of Art and The Glasgow School of Art
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.
Join ‘Tipping Point’ artist duo, Identity 2.0 for ‘Crafting Resistance,’ a hands-on zine-making workshop designed to archive your everyday moments of resistance.
Image by Arda Awais
Join us for ‘Crafting Resistance,’ a drop-in, hands-on zine-making workshop designed to archive your everyday moments of resistance and inspire you to find new ways to critically engage with and resist the unwanted and pervasive incursion of artificial intelligence into various aspects of our lives. This interactive session will guide you through the process of creating your zine and allow us to reflect on the importance of documenting and sharing modes of resistance.
The workshop draws inspiration from Identity 2.0’s collaboration with a diverse range of activists for their featured project, Issue: 404.
Workshop Details
Facilitators: Identity 2.0 (Savena Surana and Arda Awais) Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 12:00-14:00 | Free/Drop-in Activity Duration: Approx. 30mins Audience: Age of 12 + (anyone under 18 should be accompanied by an adult) Registration is also welcome if preferred; participants with tickets are guaranteed entry and drop-in will be on a first come first served basis if capacity is full. Location: Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Edinburgh EH8 9BT
Check out ‘Comedic Tools for Grappling with AI’, with Louise Ashcroft, the second drop-in making workshop happening 12:00-14:00 at Bayes Centre as part of the Tipping Point event programme.
These workshops are part of Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID), Tipping Point: Artist Responses to AIexhibition programme, featuring seven new art commissions, by Louise Ashcroft – Julie Freeman – Wesley Goatley – Identity 2.0 – Rachel Maclean – Kiki Shervington-White – Studio Above & Below exploring what artists can do to help us more wisely respond to the present realities and near-future horizons of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Join ‘Tipping Point’ artist Louise Ashcroft for ‘Comedic Tools for Grappling with AI,’ an interactive workshop which explores the potential for humour and speculative design to shine light on present-day societal issues.
Join us for ‘Comedic Tools for Grappling with AI,’ an interactive workshop led by comedy-adjacent artist Louise Ashcroft, which explores the potential for humour and speculative design to shine light on present-day societal issues. Using the current proliferation of AI hype as a backdrop, the workshop will encourage acts of community resilience and empowerment through collaborative brainstorming and hands-on activities. Come along to create and prototype your own whimsical AI gadgets using paint, drawing, and simple model-making techniques.
Event Details
Facilitator: Louise Ashcroft Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 12:00-14:00 | Free/Drop-in Activity Duration: Approx. 10-20mins Audience: Age of 12 + (anyone under 18 should be accompanied by an adult) Registration is also welcome if preferred; participants with tickets are guaranteed entry and drop-in will be on a first come first served basis if capacity is full.
Check out ‘Crafting Resistance: A Zine-Making Workshop on Everyday Activism’, with Savena Surana and Arda Awais from Identity 2.0, the second drop-in making workshop happening 12:00-14:00 at Bayes Centre as part of the Tipping Point event programme.
These workshops are part of Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID), Tipping Point: Artist Responses to AIexhibition porgramme, featuring seven new art commissions, by Louise Ashcroft – Julie Freeman – Wesley Goatley – Identity 2.0 – Rachel Maclean – Kiki Shervington-White – Studio Above & Below exploring what artists can do to help us more wisely respond to the present realities and near-future horizons of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
We are thrilled to announce two groundbreaking exhibitions of new work this August, hosted by Inspace and Informatics Forum, and forming this year’s Edinburgh College of Art exhibition highlight for the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. These exhibitions delve into the role artists play in navigating the evolving landscapes of Artificial Intelligence (AI), tackling themes of inspired innovation and agency, community empowerment and resistance, environmentalism, and matters of authenticity for artworks in the age of AI.
These exhibitions are the result of two art commission projects, one by the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme and the other by BRAID research fellow Caterina Moruzzi’s project, Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives (CREA-TEC), all proudly funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
Featuring an array of media including sculpture, video, installation, gadgets, zines and animation, audiences are invited to discover new perspectives on art and AI, all the while thinking about desired futures and the communities and work that will be needed to build them.
Hanna Barakat & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN / https://betterimagesofai.org /
The exhibition explores what artists can do to help us more wisely respond to the present realities and near-future horizons of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It features seven newly commissioned artworks from across the UK, funded by the UK’s Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) research programme.
The artworks present new ways of thinking about today’s AI, the futures we want and the communities needed to build it. Artists include Louise Ashcroft, Julie Freeman, Wesley Goatley, Identity 2.0, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above & Below.
This art commissioning programme is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and delivered by BRAID in partnership with Inspace at the Institute for Design Informatics, with support from Edinburgh Art Festival and Better Images of AI.
Authenticity Unmasked: Unveiling AI-Driven Realities Through Art
Dates: 7 – 17 August 2025 Time: Mon-Sun, 10:00 – 17:00 | Free/Drop-In Location: G.07 at University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum [Fringe Venue 422 ]
AI-generated content is reshaping how we perceive truth and authenticity. From viral deep fakes to AI-altered political videos designed to manipulate public opinion, digital authenticity is increasingly uncertain. AI tools can even rewrite personal history, generating images of moments that never existed or altering past memories.
The artworks presented in this exhibition will challenge our understanding of authenticity, engaging audiences in questions such as: When does authenticity in digital content matter to us? What influences our perception of what is real or fabricated? What shapes our trust in human-made creations?
This Commission programme is led by CREA-TEC (“Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives”), a research project at the University of Edinburgh conducted in collaboration with Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to enhance transparency and access to the provenance history of digital media.
Event Programme
ARTIST PANEL
Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 15:00-16:30| Free/Ticketed Location: Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Edinburgh EH8 9BT
Title: Re-envisioning creative and critical engagement with AI through art Speakers: Wesley Goatley, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above&Below
Join us at the Bayes Centre for a dynamic panel discussion featuring artists Wesley Goatley, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, and Studio Above&Below. Collectively, their works delve into the intersections of historical technological advances and contemporary AI developments, employing critical and speculative design, installation, interactive art, community engagement, and filmmaking.
These artworks are not only designed to inspire us creatively but also to challenge us politically. How can art best serve as a powerful tool for empowering our creativity while critically exploring and advocating for more responsible, sustainable, and ethical futures in technology?
OPENING RECEPTION
Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 18:00-20:30| Free/Ticketed Locations:
Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB G.07 Informatics Forum, at University of Edinburgh
Join us at Inspace and Informatics Forum, for the opening reception of Tipping Point: Artist Responses to AI, and Authenticity Unmasked: Unveiling AI-Driven Realities Through Art, celebrating and presenting two captivating exhibitions featuring ten new art commissions from the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) art commission programme and BRAID funded project Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives (CREA-TEC), for the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
This evening reception features artworks by artists Louise Ashcroft, Julie Freeman, Wesley Goatley, Identity 2.0, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above & Below at Inspace and artworks by Georgia Gardner, Kinnari Saraiya, dmstfctn at Informatics Forum.
Join us for ‘Crafting Resistance,’ a hands-on zine-making workshop designed to empower you to critically engage with and resist the unwanted and pervasive incursion of artificial intelligence (AI) into various aspects of our lives. This interactive session will guide you through the process of creating your own zine, using art and dialogue to capture and challenge the AI-saturated world of today. The workshop draws inspiration from Identity 2.0’s collaboration with a diverse range of activists for their project, Issue: 404.
Photo by Christa Holka 2024
Comedic Tools for Grappling with AI
Facilitator: Louise Ashcroft Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 13:00-14:00 | Free/Ticketed Registration is preferred, but drop-ins are also welcome
Join us for ‘Comedic Tools for Grappling with AI,’ an interactive workshop led by comedy-adjacent artist Louise Ashcroft, which explores the potential for humour and speculative design to shine light on present-day societal issues. Using the current proliferation of AI hype as a backdrop, the workshop will encourage acts of community resilience and empowerment through collaborative brainstorming and hands-on activities. Come along to create and prototype your own whimsical AI gadgets using paint, drawing, and simple model-making techniques.
Guided Expert Tours
Image credit: Theodore Kotwerwas presenting at The Sounds of Deep Fake exhibition at Inspace, 2023. Photogrpahy by Chris Scott
Tour of both exhibitions
Date: Thurs 14 Aug 2025 Time: 13:00-14:30 | Free/Drop-in Location: this tour includes both Tipping Point and Authenticity Unmasked exhibitions across Inspace and Informatics Forum Activity Duration: Approx. 90mins
Tipping Point Tours
Dates: Thurs 21 / 28 Aug 2025 Time: 13:00-13:45 | Free/Drop-in Location: these tours are of the Tipping Point exhibition in Inspace only Activity Duration: Approx. 45mins
For guided tours we have limited capacity and so registration is preferred. Participants with tickets are guaranteed entry and drop-in attendance will be on a first come first served basis.
Audience: Age of 12 + (anyone under 18 should be accompanied by an adult) Venue Access Info: Inspace and Informatics Forum
BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) is a 6-year national research programme funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, led by The University of Edinburgh in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute and the BBC. It is co-directed by Shannon Vallor and Ewa Luger, working alongside a team of co-investigators representing the breadth of the Arts and Humanities.
CREA-TEC (“Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives”), a research project at the University of Edinburgh conducted in collaboration with Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to enhance transparency and access to the provenance history of digital media. CREA-TEC is supported by the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme with funds received from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
In the Institute for Design Informatics, we fuse design and creative methodologies with data, data science and data-driven technologies. We create prototypes and experiences that make real to people the ideas that underpin the data society, and aim to ensure that new technologies sustain and enhance human values.
Join us at the Bayes Centre for a dynamic panel discussion featuring Tipping Point artists Wesley Goatley, Rachel Maclean, and Kiki Shervington-White, followed by the opening reception of Tipping Point and Authtenticity Unmasked the two new art and AI exhibitions at Inspace and Informatics Forum fearutred as part of the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Image Credit: Rare Metals 2 by Hanna Barakat & Archival Images of AI + AIxDESIGN
ARTIST PANEL
Join us at the Bayes Centre for a dynamic panel discussion featuring Tipping Point artists Wesley Goatley, Rachel Maclean, and Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above&Below. Collectively, their works delve into the intersections of historical technological advances and contemporary AI developments, employing critical and speculative design, installation, interactive art, community engagement, and filmmaking. These artworks are not only designed to inspire us creatively but also to challenge us politically. How can art best serve as a powerful tool for empowering our creativity while critically exploring and advocating for more responsible, sustainable, and ethical futures in technology?
Date: Fri 8 Aug 2025 Time: 15:00 – 16:30 | Free/Ticketed Location: Bayes Centre, 47 Potterrow, Edinburgh EH8 9BT
Join us at Inspace and Informatics Forum, to meet the artists behind the work and for the opening reception of Tipping Point: Artist Responses to AI, and Authenticity Unmasked: Unveiling AI-Driven Realities Through Art, celebrating and presenting two captivating exhibitions featuring ten new art commissions from the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) art commission programme and BRAID funded project Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives (CREA-TEC), for the 2025 Edinburgh Art Festival and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
This evening reception features artworks by artists Louise Ashcroft, Julie Freeman, Wesley Goatley, Identity 2.0, Rachel Maclean, Kiki Shervington-White, Studio Above & Below at Inspace and artworks by Georgia Gardner, Kinnari Saraiya, dmstfctn at Informatics Forum.
Join this event to discover how artists are opening up new perspectives on AI, envisioning desired futures, and exploring the communities essential for shaping them.
Date: Fri 8 August 2025 Time: 18:00-20:30| Free/Ticketed Locations: Inspace, 1 Crichton St, Newington, Edinburgh EH8 9AB G.07 Informatics Forum, at University of Edinburgh
BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) is a 6-year national research programme funded by the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council, led by The University of Edinburgh in partnership with the Ada Lovelace Institute and the BBC. It is co-directed by Shannon Vallor and Ewa Luger, working alongside a team of co-investigators representing the breadth of the Arts and Humanities.
CREA-TEC (“Cultivating Responsible Engagement with AI Technology to Empower Creatives”), a research project at the University of Edinburgh conducted in collaboration with Adobe and the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), co-founded by Adobe in 2019 to enhance transparency and access to the provenance history of digital media. The outcome of the commission and exhibit will be twofold: 1) informing old and creating new approaches for digital transparency and 2) increasing the audience’s awareness around content provenance and authenticity—and AI in general.
CREA-TEC is supported by the Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme with funds received from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
