Event

artistEvent

CI Lab 22: Digital Identities

At CI Lab 22 we will hear from award-winning artist Rachel Maclean who has been working with the Institute for Design Informatics to produce AI-generated audio for her new short film ‘Duck’, a darkly comedic British spy drama starring a deepfake Sean Connery. Rachel will talk alongside Martin Disley (researcher and artist), Adam Castle (producer for Pollyanna) and Lynne Craig (design academic) who will each present their work ranging from interactive digital cabaret videos to voice clones to hyper realities.

 

Rachel Maclean

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1987, artist 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 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. 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 and achieved widespread critical praise for her film Feed Me at British Art Show 8 in 2016. Since 2020 Rachel has been a NUAcT Fellow at the University of Newcastle where her research focuses on exploring how deepfake and AI technology can be used within her practice.

Rachel is currently working on a new short film, which explores the use of deep fake video and audio and will be shown as part of an ambitious solo exhibition at Kunstpalais Erlangen in Germany next year.

 

Martin Disley

Martin Disley is an artist, researcher and developer based in Edinburgh, Scotland (working independently and with Design Informatics). His visual practice centres around an ongoing critical investigation into machine learning, manifesting its internal contradictions and logical limitations in beguiling images, video and sound. He is the cofounder, along with Murad Khan, of Unit Test, a creative research studio exploring the methods of investigative computing and counter data-science practices.

Martin will talk about deep fakes and the voice. He will speak about his work developing voice clones for Rachel Maclean’s most recent film and his own work using deep fakes to reveal the fragility of facial recognition model.

 

Adam Castle

Pollyanna has produced queer art and culture in Scotland since 2015. The annual cabaret shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe have hosted over 250 performance and been described as ‘a bona fide asset to the Fringe’ **** by the Scotsman and ‘the only queer collective you want to see this Fringe’ ***** Edinburgh Festivals Magazine. Since 2020, Pollyanna has been producing digital cabaret online and in galleries across Scotland. OMOS, the latest project produced by Pollyanna, is led by four artists paying homage to Scottish Black history and celebrating Black performance today, with exhibitions and workshops at Dunoon Burgh Hall, Royal Scottish Academy, Stirling Castle and KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin in 2022 and 2023. Pollyanna is working with Creative Informatics, The University of Edinburgh for a new project in 2022-23 developing interactive digital cabaret videos.

Adam Castle is the founder and producer of Icky Arts CIC that produces Pollyanna alongside Edinburgh Artists’ Moving Image Festival (EAMIF), celebrating video art and artist’s moving image through festivals, screenings and events. Adam won the Creative Edinburgh Leadership Award in 2016 in recognition of both projects. As an artist Adam has been commissioned by BBC Scotland / LUX Scotland and Talbot Rice Gallery. As a freelance producer and curator he has worked for Historic Environment Scotland, Royal Conservatoire Scotland, The Audience Agency and Centre for Cultural Value.

 

Lynne Craig

Lynne Craig’s practice connects design, technology, education, and business development; exploring the frontiers of emergent technologies and cultural change.

Throughout her career she has built businesses, created products, designed systems for global audiences, and continues to reimagine what the role of ‘making’ in design, education and business looks like for tomorrow.

A jewellery graduate from the Royal College of Art, current roles include Deputy Director, Innovation, Edinburgh Futures Institute, Programme Director MA Design Informatics at University of Edinburgh. Lynne is Non-Executive Director and Co-Founder Holition Augmented Retail, serving as an elected member of Goldsmiths Centre Trade Advisory Strategy Committee, and Fellow, Royal Society of Arts. Previously Founder and Director of Digital Anthropology Lab, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UAL.

Lynne will talk about Hyper Real Futures- finding new visual narratives for exploring ways in which we are both shaping and being shaped by evolving technologies.

 

Come along to hear more about these exciting projects that are using technology in new ways to expand their artist practice and offer a new way of seeing. This event will be offered both in-person and on-line. In-person attendees will be offered drinks and networking and expanded viewings of some of the films talked about during the discussions.

 

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Assembly Roxy, 2 Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh EH8 9SU