Festival of
Creative AI

Experience the future of creativity at UCA’s FREE Festival of Creative AI
 
The University for the Creative Arts (UCA) is set to supercharge the conversation on artificial intelligence with our Festival of Creative AI (FoCAi) – a free, five-day online and in-person event running from May 19-23. This exciting festival will explore the limitless possibilities of generative AI in creative practice, showcasing UCA’s cutting-edge research and innovation while offering the public a unique opportunity to gain insight into AI tools and skills. There will be workshops held, both online and at our three campuses, in Canterbury, Epsom and Farnham.

To attend, you must register here in order to receive the joining link.

What to expect

• Daily Creative Challenges – Unlock creativity with hands-on AI experiments using accessible,free-to-use AI tools.
• Inspiring Workshops at 11 AM – Hear from creative professionals who are using AI in visual art,music, and ethical discussions.
• Showcase Your Work – Share creations on the FoCAi community platform, with selected projects featured on UCA’s social media and festival website.
• On-Campus Engagement – UCA students and staff can take part in in-person events on campus.

A unique opportunity to learn and experiment

AI is reshaping the creative world, and FoCAi provides an exciting chance for anyone interested to explore its potential. Whether you are an artist, musician, writer, designer, or simply curious about AI, this free event offers:

• Insights into cutting-edge AI tools and trends.
• A chance to develop new creative skills using AI.
• An opportunity to engage with experts and fellow creatives.
• The chance to contribute to UCA’s ongoing research into AI in creativity.

Open to everyone

Registration is free and open to all. This is a fantastic opportunity for anyone interested in creative AI to learn, experiment, and engage with experts in the field. To ensure a safe and inclusive environment, participants will sign up via a verified email address and can post under a nickname. Remember to register here.

Stay tuned for updates

Follow UCA and the Global Research Network (GRN) on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn for the latest updates.

• UCA Twitter
• UCA Instagram
• UCA LinkedIn
• GRN LinkedIn

Programme of events

Monday 19 May 2025
Epsom campus & online
The Auditorium, UCA Epsom Campus, 21 Ashley Road, Epsom KT18 5BE

Kicking off UCA’s Festival of Creative AI, Monday’s theme is AI in Art, with a day of talks, creative challenges, and live demonstrations.

Programme times & speakers

Tuesday 20 May 2025
Online

On the second day of UCA’s Festival of Creative AI, the spotlight is on AI in Music, featuring a collaborative session that explores Google FX and other innovative tools for music creation.

Programme times & speakers

Wednesday 21 May 2025
Canterbury campus & online
Level 3, Rochester House UCA Canterbury Campus, New Dover Road, Canterbury CT1 1UT

Wednesday’s agenda is packed with talks from thought-provoking speakers and hands-on activities, all centered around the theme of AI in Research.

Programme times & speakers

Thursday 22 May 2025
Farnham campus & online
Room G151, UCA Farnham Campus, Faulkner Road, Farnham GU9 7DS

Day four of UCA’s Festival of Creative AI lands at the Farnham campus, kicking off at 10am with a games-focused session that’s sure to level up your thinking on AI and play.

Programme times & speakers

Friday 23 May 2025
Online

Day five of UCA’s Festival of Creative AI focuses on AI Ethics and Governance, featuring a talk on intellectual property law and an open conversation on the ethical challenges shaping the future of creative technologies.

Programme times & speakers

Biographies and abstracts (in order of appearance)

Mark Brill (Senior Lecturer, UCA) – Mark has been working with emerging technologies in the creative industries and Higher Education for over 30 years. In that time, he has established creative innovation networks, such as Birmingham’s Maker Monday, as well as working on his own tech driven concepts from playable art pieces to connected wardrobes. Currently Mark is researching at the impact of Generative AI and asking the question, ‘does AI make us more or less creative?’.

Professor Anastasios Maragiannis (Pro Vice-Chancellor Creative Education, UCA) – Professor Maragiannis is leading the strategic direction and delivery of creative education across the university, fostering an inclusive and innovative learning environment. The role encompasses advancing research excellence, knowledge exchange, and enterprise initiatives, aligning with KEF, REF, and TEF priorities. An advocate for interdisciplinary research and pedagogic practice, Professor Maragiannis has spearheaded initiatives in areas such as knowledge exchange sustainability and innovation. As one of five facilitators of the global research project “Design in Space for Life on Earth,” organized by the World Design Organization (WDO®) and the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, he led a team of experts to develop co-design solutions aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). He also served as Principal Investigator for the EU-funded NWE INTERREG project, securing €4.2M to support youth entrepreneurship and innovation

Kate Steenhaur – Kate is a visual artist and film maker based in Scotland. She will be presenting PAinting Music which explores how AI techniques can facilitate multifaceted relationships between music and visual art. PAinting Music uses explainable, green creative AI, which is innovative even in the field of AI. PAinting Music offers audience-interactive apps,live performance, audio-visual installations, art/STEM workshops, talks, and artwork that spark art-science-themed inspired conversation. You can find out more and use the tool at her website: https://paintingmusic.co.uk/

Dr Harry Whalley – As well as being a Reader in the Doctoral College at UCA, Harry is a jazz musician and composer. Harry’s work looks at the role of music and memory both composing pieces as well as working in the area of ageing and cognition.

Brian Johnson – Brian Johnson is a Senior Lecturer at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), based at the Epsom campus. He teaches on the MA Design, Innovation & Brand Management course and has been in this role for the past four years. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Brian Johnson serves as the Subject Leader for the MA Design, Innovation and Brand Management programme at UCA, a position he has held since March 2013. This role involves overseeing the curriculum, guiding the academic direction of the programme, and supporting both students and faculty in delivering a comprehensive educational experience.

Matt Gooderson – Matt Gooderson is a music producer, educator, and researcher exploring the intersection of AI and creativity. Gooderson’s work bridges industry and academia, focusing on ethical innovation in music-making, education, and emerging creative technologies. You can find one of Matt’s projects here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvDM980YNls

Dr Yoriko Otomo (Research Degrees Leader, UCA) – Yoriko Otomo is an interdisciplinary researcher in law, environmental governance, and the ethical dimensions of emerging technologies. As Research Degrees Leader at the University for the Creative Arts, she oversees doctoral research across the university’s four campuses. In this role, she has reimagined doctoral education to address societal and sustainability challenges. Through her leadership of the Global Research Network, Dr. Otomo fosters interdisciplinary dialogue on the societal impacts of artificial intelligence, focusing on governance, ethics, and inclusivity. Her work examines the opportunities that AI affords in rethinking our legal frameworks, advocating for equitable and accountable governance structures in the digital age.

Professor Hedley Roberts – Hedley Roberts is an academic and practicing artist affiliated with the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in the United Kingdom. He holds multiple leadership roles within the institution, notably serving as the Executive Dean at UCA Canterbury, Director of the UCA Doctoral College, and Director of the School of Fine Art, Crafts and Photography. Appointed in 2022, Professor Roberts has been instrumental in shaping the direction of UCA's fine art programs. His leadership emphasizes fostering creative experimentation and integrating professional practice into art education. In his scholarly work, he advocates for a flexible and playful approach to preparing art students for the evolving creative industries, encouraging adaptability and innovation.

Weirdness is Not a Slider: On Art Schools, AI and Being Human – Professor Hedley Roberts

In the age of generative AI, art schools are uniquely positioned to defend what cannot be automated: the weird, the strange, the eccentric, and the unresolved. Weirdness is not a slider – not a stylistic effect to be dialled up or down, but a condition of human becoming. In the age of generative AI, art schools are uniquely positioned to defend what cannot be automated: the weird, the strange, the eccentric, and the unresolved. Drawing on concepts of liminality and limerence, creative education enables subjectivity, obsession, neurodivergence, and love – not as deviations from learning, but as its method. Where AI completes, humans contradict. Where AI simulates, humans insist. Art schools are places for this: spaces where ambiguity is cultivated, not corrected, and where transformation emerges through failure, feeling, and risk. As optimisation reshapes higher education, weirdness must be reclaimed – not as inefficiency, but as a vital condition of human becoming.

Helen Starr – Helen Starr is an Afro-Indigenous Trinidadian world-building curator. She founded The Mechatronic Library (est. 2010) to commission immersive and interactive works from marginalised artists. These have been exhibited widely, both in the UK and internationally. Through her curatorial practice, Starr has developed a distinctive Indigenous Carib Cosmotechnic – rooted in feminism, gender fluidity, and nature godded epistemologies.

Her central thesis is that both the computer and the brain are reality-rendering engines, generating the conditions for multiple, subjective consciousnesses to emerge. Drawing from ancestral knowledge systems and critical posthumanist thought, Starr explores how alternate cosmologies can unsettle dominant techno-rational paradigms. She lives in London and remains deeply engaged with the writings of Jamaican philosopher Sylvia Wynter, whose work continues to shape her thinking across curatorial, digital, and decolonial domains.

Slow AI: The Age of Due Diligence – Helen Starr

As generative AI tools flood creative industries, artists, educators, and students face a pivotal cultural and ethical crossroads. No sooner was a major image-generation model released than the internet was saturated with visuals mimicking the signature style of Studio Ghibli – a viral moment that doubled as an unregulated marketing campaign for OpenAI and similar companies. While such events accelerate public fascination, they also lay bare urgent concerns around consent, authorship, and the liberal use of others' intellectual property in training datasets.

This talk examines the distinctions between traditional AI (symbolic, rules-based systems) and large language models (LLMs), which ingest massive volumes of human made content to generate probabilistic outputs. We will explore how this shift transforms not only the aesthetics of moving images but also the infrastructures of their commercialisation. What are the ethical implications of building tools on uncompensated cultural labour? Can “open-world” deployment models – where ethical questions are addressed only after mass adoption – be reconciled with academic and artistic values?

Proposing a concept of Slow AI, this session calls for an “age of due diligence”: a counter-tempo approach where creative practitioners, institutions, and students insist on transparency, traceability, and justice in how these systems are developed, trained, and monetised. It is not only a matter of technological literacy, but of cultural accountability.

The Quillwork Garden – Crafting an Immersive VR Experience with assistance from Creative AI – Niki Wakefield

This presentation explores the integration of creative AI in crafting an immersive multisensory experience that blends traditional paper quilling alongside virtual reality (VR). In ‘The Quillwork Garden’, participants journey through a vibrant garden that showcases the tactile beauty of paper quilling. Future development of the project will introduce elements of a darker narrative, which will be reduced by the interaction of the participants. As an established craft, paper quilling transforms simple paper strips into intricate artistic designs. This was used as the foundation for my project. By utilising AI, concept ideas and templates for quilling designs were developed. To aid with rapid content creation, experimentation was carried out in generating AI-driven 3D models in a quill style to enhance the visual narrative. Unreal was used to create the immersive experience. As I was relatively new to this game engine, AI was used for specific problem-solving, facilitating faster development of the VR environment. By blending traditional artistry with creative AI and VR techniques, this project explores the boundaries of sensory immersive storytelling. As AI and technology advance, future investigations will focus on enhancing interactive elements, allowing participants to engage with the narrative in novel ways.

Griffin Gu – Griffin Gu is a multidisciplinary artist, sound tracker, and AIGC researcher. His work explores creative computing and graphic aesthetic states. He has been committed to the creative exploration of graphic image design, artificial intelligence, creative graphics and sound. He writes code and uses algorithmic/data-driven design and aesthetics to create moving images, sounds, large-scale responsive installations, and performances. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University for the Creative Arts in the UK, specialising in artistic and creative applications of artificial intelligence.

Fast and controllable video and animation generation for production – Griffin Gu

In the fast-evolving landscape of digital content production, the demand for efficient, flexible, and high-quality video and animation generation has never been greater. This talk explores the transformative potential of Runway Gen-4, a state-of-the-art AI platform that combines advanced generative models with intuitive controls to streamline video and animation workflows for professional production pipelines. Traditional methods of video creation – from keyframe animation to manual compositing – are often time-consuming and require extensive technical expertise, limiting creative agility. Runway Gen-4 addresses these challenges by enabling fast, controllable generation of dynamic visual content through a combination of text prompts, motion parameters, and style customization, all within a user-friendly interface. The talk will delve into how Runway Gen-4 leverages cutting-edge AI, such as diffusion models and motion-aware neural networks, to generate coherent video sequences in real-time or near-real-time, drastically reducing iteration times compared to conventional tools. Key features, including precise control over camera movement, character animation, scene transitions, and visual styles (e.g., photorealistic, stylized, or abstract), empower creators – from animators to video editors – to rapidly prototype ideas, iterate on concepts, and integrate AI-generated content seamlessly into existing workflows. Case studies will highlight applications in advertising, film previsualization, and social media content creation, demonstrating how the platform balances speed with artistic control.

Susan Muncey – Susan Muncey is a writer, researcher and trend forecaster. She originally worked in finance, before setting up cult boutique, Fashion Gallery, and being shortlisted for Drapers Record Top Buyer of the Year Award after just two years in business. A pioneer of slow fashion, in 2008 Susan founded online store ShopCurious, dedicated to this cause. She also created and edited Visuology, a magazine offering “inspiration and ideas for a sustainable future” and has written extensively on sustainable design, social trends, craft and collecting. Several decades after her undergraduate degree in geography at Cambridge, Susan studied for a Masters in fashion history and culture at the London College of Fashion, specialising in dress codes and power dressing.

Authenticity and its Perception in the Age of Artificial Intelligence – Susan Muncey

Susan Muncey’s research project focuses on authenticity and its perception through an exploration of trust in digital authentication methods for the luxury resale market. Artificial intelligence can facilitate the counterfeiting and misrepresentation of luxury goods both online and in real life. However, AI is also increasingly being used as a tool to authenticate luxury items, such as designer handbags and high-end sneakers.

This presentation will outline key areas to be investigated in the study, including consumer trust in luxury resale authentication methods and technology in general, and the extent to which perceptions of authenticity are and may be affected by digital interventions.

Jade McSorley – Jade McSorley is Head of Knowledge Exchange (Sustainability) at the Centre for Sustainable Fashion, London College of Fashion, and a PhD researcher at the University for the Creative Arts. Her research explores digital fashion, identity, and consumer behaviour, building on her MA in Fashion Futures (UAL) and work at the Fashion Innovation Agency. A former fashion model and co-founder of fashion rental platform LOANHOOD, Jade champions responsible innovation and ethical AI in fashion. She regularly speaks on digital identity and sustainability in fashion, including at TEDx, and collaborates with industry to shape a more inclusive, transparent future for fashion.

As avatars, 3D scanning, and AI-generated digital humans become increasingly integrated into the fashion industry, critical questions arise around the ethical and sustainable implications of digitising the human body. Using the modelling industry as a focal case study, this research investigates user perceptions and concerns regarding the adoption of digital humans by fashion brands. It highlights key environmental and social impacts, while underscoring the urgent need for policy frameworks around data ownership, human rights, and responsible innovation in this emerging digital landscape.

Birgitta Hosea – Birgitta Hosea is a time-based media artist working with experimental drawing, performance and expanded animation (including AI). Professor of Moving Image at UCA, she was Head of Animation at the RCA (2016-18); Course Director of MA Character Animation at Central Saint Martins (2000-15) and Senior Demo Artist for Adobe (2000-2012). Born in Edinburgh, currently based in London. Dual citizen of UK/Sweden. Having studied theatre design at Glasgow School of Art and interdisciplinary approaches to animation at London Met and Central Saint Martins, Hosea explores ways in which moving drawing might be extended into all four dimensions. Rooted in a conceptual approach to media art, she creates evocative and atmospheric, animated installations that explore the simulation of ‘othered’ spatial experience. Drawing upon theories of queer time and space, she seeks to physically locate the viewer within the subjective world of another. This has included the invisibility of working class labour: ‘Erasure’ (shown at Hanmi Gallery, Seoul; Oaxaca Museum of Contemporary Art; Venice Biennale; Art Brussels, etc); the performativity of gender: ‘Medium’ (at Exploding Cinema; Karachi Biennale, etc) and ‘Out There in the Dark’ at (Mix 23 Queer Experimental Film Festival, New York; BFI; ACTArt, etc); queer female sexuality: Holes (at South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell, ASIFAKeil, Vienna; Box Art Space, Beijing; Guizhou Provincial Museum; Chicago Underground Film Festival, etc).

Artists and Artisanal AI – Birgitta Hosea

Mainstream Gen-AI (generative AI) platforms specialise in creating new content such as video, music, images or text. They make the creative process seem easy and accessible. However, the models used to generate new content are partial and biased; they have ‘blindspots’ and hallucinate. They are trained upon databases of creative labour extracted from the internet without credit and they seek to replace the very creative workers whose ideas they stole. How then can artists experiment with AI using ethical processes that build on their own imagery rather than images extracted from others? In this presentation, Birgitta Hosea will show work by artists who use small datasets that challenge the biases encoded into the mainstream. She will include examples from her own current work-in-progress to explain how AI might extend experimental traditions of mark-making.

Professor Sophy Smith – Professor Sophy Smith is the newly appointed Executive Dean of Farnham Campus UCA, previously Director of the School of Games and Creative Technology. She holds 10+ years’ experience as a composer, then moved into research around areas of Creative Technology with particular focus on immersive performance and interdisciplinary innovation.

Prompt to Play: Building NPC interactions with AI – Professor Sophy Smith

Prof. Smith will be speaking about the creation of Lizzy – the Elizabeth Bennet AI avatar, followed by an interactive task where you can craft your own Twine narrative interactions with AI.

Roderick Morgan – Roderick is a creative technologist with a decade of expertise in immersive technology, who is passionate about driving innovation in the sector. His background in directing and producing theatre informs his work with technology, ensuring that story and narrative are at the centre of his practice.

Associate Professor Matilda Arvidsson – Matilda Arvidsson is an associate professor of law at the University of Gothenburg. She is an internationally recognized expert in AI and law from critical perspectives, including feminist, environmental and decolonial perspectives. She writes about feminist technology history and has a background as a legal practitioner in the Swedish judiciary.

Governing AI: the EU AI Act – Professor Matilda Arvidsson

AI has become an increasingly large part of society, making questions of what legal boundaries around its uses are. In this talk I introduce you to the fundamental principles and rules of the EU AI Act, focusing on best practices for businesses and what responsibility organisations – including artistic business practices – have when using AI. What should we as business owners and as individuals consider in our own use of AI?

Professor John O’Dea – John O'Dea is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo. He researches philosophical problems of consciousness and is currently investigating the problem of ‘other minds’, especially in the context of social robots, supported by a Japanese government research grant for his project, ‘The Problem of Other Minds in an Age of Social Robots’. He will be introducing an overview of how academics – philosophers and neuroscientists – working at the intersection of ethics and AI are thinking about key issues and then facilitating an ‘open forum’ discussion among our attendees.