Leicester’s first festival celebrating artificial intelligence in arts and creativity has been shortlisted for an award celebrating the best innovations in Leicestershire.
The two-week ART-AI Festival is produced by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU)’s Institute of Creative Technologies and in 2018 was held at Phoenix Cinema and Highcross Shopping Centre.
It has been shortlisted as a finalist for the Innovation in the Creative Sector Awards at the Leicestershire Live Innovation Awards, due to be held in April.
The news comes as organisers prepare for this year’s festival, with leading figures in AI art from around the world heading to Leicester – including Mario Klingemann, who last month sold some of his work created with AI at Sotheby’s.
Last year’s festival was developed and curated by Professor Tracy Harwood of the IOCT; independent AI artist/curator Luba Elliott, who has advised the World Economic Forum on AI; Chris Tyrer, digital arts manager at Phoenix, and Tina Barton, community manager at Highcross. It was sponsored by #DMUlocal.
This year Professor Harwood is working again with Luba Elliott and Chris Tyrer to create a much larger event set to feature five venues across Leicester, taking place in May.
Professor Harwood said she was delighted that the festival had been recognised in this way. She said: “The aim of the event in 2018 was to highlight the roles of AI and showcase its current state of development through artistic practices, so it was a novel way to bring the public closer to the cutting edge of this technology. Working as a team with Phoenix, Highcross and with Luba’s expertise, we achieved an incredible level of interest in the Festival, the first of its kind, and the artists’ work we showcased.
"I’m happy that it has been recognized for innovation in creativity, it’s also testament to the creative power of collaboration!"
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The first ART-AI Festival brought together installations, talks, films and live performances. Events included children’s workshops with work supported by MIT Medialab and Google Creative Lab, an AI that “learned” to love through people interacting with it on Twitter, and an improv comedy show with a robot.
The Innovation Awards, awarded in April, provide a platform to recognise organisations and people. Categories cover technology, services, digital, creative sector, construction, manufacturing and engineering.
There is also a research leadership award to recognise the superb academic work being done in Leicestershire’s universities.
Posted on Friday 22 March 2019