Featuring talks from Christie Morgan on Softer Digital Futures, Nadia Piet on alternative AI practices and Calum Bowden on collaborative system change. Followed by Workshops that invite collective exploration, concluding with a final reflection.

The process culminated in a collective work, Remarkable Dreamers, a deep-sea universe that exists in the borderland between fact and fiction, between the recognisable and the foreign.

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Explore the infinite darkness and meet mysterious and mythical creatures — beings that are normally inaccessible to us humans. We know that we are incompatible by nature; we cannot survive in their world and they cannot survive in ours, and therefore we must attempt to approach each other in this digital no man's land.

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In a world with increasingly black-boxed technologies and rapidly growing AI models, cyberdecks feel like a safe haven, a breath of fresh air, devices that give us hope for brighter tech futures built on playfulness, participation and decentralisation.

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For more details and to apply, please read more on our blog.

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Artwork by Sian Fan

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We'll start with a conversation. What is a body state? What are you already transmitting without knowing it?

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From there, we move into TouchDesigner and MediaPipe, using real-time body tracking to turn movement into data, signal, and image. Then we open Ableton and give that signal a voice. We’ll play together, experiment, and explore how movement can shape sound.

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All you need is an open mind, a laptop, and headphones. Both tools are free to download, and you'll leave with a ready-to-use template to keep exploring.

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This is a door cracked open. A first step into a new language, one your body already speaks.

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In collaboration with Ableton.

You will get to try your hand at using the basic building blocks of programming to draw and animate with code! The event is suitable for absolute beginners, but we can also try to accommodate if you come with more experience and are looking for inspiration for the next steps in your learning. Bring a laptop.

The session will start with a story of how she got into tech (spoiler: it's all about finding and building supportive communities) and how she navigated building a career in software and teaching. The session will end with a roundtable discussion of your individual experiences finding a footing in the technical realm and how we can support each other to belong here.

As the Lab is a rather small and intimate space (and we hope to see lots of you), drinks and snacks will be served across the road by the lake. See you in the sunshine!

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We’ll be hosting a drop-in salon format of our socials, where you’ll have a chance to meet others in the SOFTER network, learn more about our initiatives and share knowledge. 

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Most importantly, we’ll have Tigris presenting a demo of her latest work Emotional Alchemy which looks at the relationship between AI and scent — an immersive olfactory installation that materialises conversations, emotions and expressions of identity into bespoke fragrances, capturing the unique contour of our individuality.  

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