Design Informatics presentation in Ars Electronica Festival 2024
Image credits: Top left – Rachel Maclean and Emiko Ogawa at Prix Ars Electronica Award Ceremony 2024. Courtesy of Ars Electronica. Photo by Tom Mesic.
Top right – DUCK, digital video still, 2023, Rachel Maclean.
Bottom left – Fiona Smith at Ars Electronica 2024. Bottom right – The BOX 2.0. Courtesy of Fiona Smith.
We were honoured to have two Design Informatics’ collaborations, The BOX 2.0 by Fiona Smith and DUCK by Rachel Maclean, presented at the Ars Electronica Festival 2024 in Linz earlier this September.
We congratulate DUCK, which received an Honorary Mention in the New Animation Art category of the Prix Ars Electronica. Design Informatics PhD candidate Martin Disley worked closely with Maclean on this deepfake British spy thriller parody starring Sean Connery and Marilyn Monroe.
Produced using deepfake visuals and audio, Maclean, who plays all the characters, swaps her voice and face with the very recognisable cast of actors, while Disley developed bespoke voice clones for each character in the film using state-of-the-art deepfake audio synthesis techniques.
The jury commented that, “… DUCK explores the fragility and malleability of identity, the slipperiness of reality, and the ramifications of gender-based power dynamics. Society is entering an increasingly more powerful inflection point through the role and impact of more AI. Through this, DUCK satirically reflects on such a moment with a time-bending cultural resonance, reminding us that the issues we fear are also issues we have dealt with in other forms.”
DUCK was produced by Forest of Black and Too Happy Studios with support from Newcastle University, Kunstpalais, and the Institute for Design Informatics.
We were also thrilled to see PhD student Fiona Smith, who is based at the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Biomedical AI at the School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, attending Ars Electronica Festival to present The BOX 2.0.
For the ARS Electronica Festival 2024, Smith reenvisioned the central sculpture of the artwork The BOX to present the new iteration The BOX 2.0 to festival audiences. The act of bringing THE BOX 2.0 from Edinburgh to Linz symbolized for Smith the international sharing of “data” that was required to build the accurate and fair AI models of the future.
The BOX was an interactive installation presented at the 2024 Edinburgh Science Festival that challenged the audience to consider how diverse medical datasets can be developed to make AI models for healthcare that work for everyone. THE BOX 2.0 was presented by Smith at the JKU Med Campus throughout the Ars Electronica Festival where the work was shared alongside opportunities to discuss the development of fair and accurate AI for healthcare.
The Box was the outcome of the Residence “STEAM Imaging V—Holding the ‘Digital’ in Medicine to Account,” hosted by Fraunhofer MEVIS, in collaboration with the Institute for Design Informatics, the International Fraunhofer Talent School Bremen and the School Center Walle, supported by Ars Electronica.