More Than AI Sandbox is a creative research and development programme. Watershed’s Sandbox methodology provides a facilitated space where participants have the chance to transform an experimental idea to a working prototype over three months of rapid research and development.  

Six teams have been commissioned to create new innovative prototypes that push creative boundaries and respond to the theme of (artificial) intelligences. The commissioned team will explore artificial intelligence and the diverse intelligences in our world and how we might learn from and collaborate with them.  

More Than AI Sandbox is part of the MyWorld IDEAS programme, funded by UK Research and Innovation’s Strength in Places Fund to establish the West of England as the global centre of creative technology excellence.  

The prototypes will be publicly showcased 20 September 2024 at Watershed as part of Other Minds, a month long season exploring different kinds of intelligence; animal, mechanical and collective through a series of events, screenings and talks. Visit our Other Minds page for more details on talks, screenings and events https://www.watershed.co.uk/whatson/season/666/other-minds  

The Commissions 

a (re)imitation of life
Created by Domenica Landin x Playfool (Daniel Coppen and Saki Maruyama) 

Reconnecting AI with non-human perspectives raises essential questions about whose knowledge is shaping the future of this technology and whose knowledge is being overlooked. By revisiting a time when machine intelligence drew inspiration from the natural world, a (re)imitation of life’  is a speculative installation situating AI, represented by an LLM, into an artificial tortoise bodies to explore a non-human perspective on intelligence. By closely integrating the mind, body and environment of an artificial being, this work ultimately aims to decenter the human perspective within AI architecture. It encourages AI to learn from the wisdom of the non-human world, fostering a deeper ecological attunement in the technologies we develop. 

CripShip*
Created by Joseph Wilk (Poetic Computation), Jon Somerscale, and Cathy Mager 

Disability saves society from big tech! CripShip is a roleplaying game where disability saves society from big tech, where play teaches resisting and breaking AI in the real world. We combine make-believe and AI as we feel there is no better grounding than comparing it to humans telling stories together.  

In the game players take on the role of employees of the Ministry of AI Spills, an underfunded government agency investigating cases of AI Foundation Models spilling slop into the world and the companies that are responsible for this mess. Players investigate cases, interrogate Foundation Models & discover clues about their suitability.  Think of it as X-files meets Hackers with a bureaucratic twist. 

 

*Crip is a term that we, along with some of our community, have reclaimed through disability scholarship, culture and activism. You can read about Crip reclamation here: https://nowthenmagazine.com/articles/crip-a-story-of-reclamation 

 

 

The Conductor & Expression Orchestra 
Created by Miles Warren, Gary-Martin Morgan, Leigh Davies, Greg Ryan (pyka) 

The Expression Orchestra is a suite of alternative musical instruments with an AI powered conductor, designed to broaden access to musical performance.  

pyka invites participants to become performers with The Expressions Orchestra, a suite of alternative musical instruments that broaden access to musical performance. Using an AI powered Conductor to interpret interactions between performer and instrument, this failure-free performance environment shows the potential of Machine Intelligence to enhance creative expression by honouring performer intentions that would previously have gone unheard. 

 

 

apothecary network  
Created by Marcus Berdaut, Zoe Palmer, Javie Huxley, Zaina Nesayem, Valerie Oyiki (The Upsetters)  

the apothecary network uses creative tech to share knowledge to grow decolonial community apothecaries. 

 

A prototype low-tech webapp that is designed to be a meeting place between plants and people built on a radically small AI robot powered by the sun. We centre collective care and a joyful connection with nature honouring our ancestral knowledge and intuitive practices. 

 

We welcome all to be guests in a space created for and by Black, Brown, racialised and diaspora communities. 

 

Glory Mold  
Created by (Produced Moon), and (Studio Areté). 

Glory Mold: 2084 is an immersive installation by Produced Moon: a prototype interactive experience set in a speculative sci-fi future where AI development has been entwined and in dialogue with the organic world. Glory Mold is inspired by slime molds – incredible problem solving unicellular organisms that can learn, move and grow with no centralised nervous system. An organism with over 720 sexes that can live for centuries and is deeply sensitive and responsive to its environment.  

This project extends into workshops that invite organisations and individuals to utilise and interrogate the speculative world of Glory Mold as a tool to reflect on their own work and strategize for a more equitable future.  

 

The Kinship Wayfinder  
Created by Harmeet Chagger-Khan (Surfing Light Beams), Adam Clewes-Boyne (BetaJester), Sharon Clark (Raucous) and Helen Brown 

Kinship Wayfinder is a playful, forest experience where teams explore, share and connect with the environment and each other to discover the fate of a group of dendrologists, who mysteriously vanished whilst on the hunt for the fabled Methuselah, the planet’s oldest tree whose rings hold critical information about the future of the earth's climate. AI is the team’s key collaborator in the design and build of the experience but also the deliverer of the experience’s final narrative reveal. 

About MyWorld programme

MyWorld is funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strength in Places Fund. MyWorld is built on the production, technology and research strengths of the West of England region to create a globally unique proposition for creative technology, research and innovation. Bringing together 13 diverse partners across academia and industry, from the University of Bristol and the University of Bath, to the BBC, Bristol Old Vic and Aardman Animations. MyWorld’s strength lies in the collaboration between these incredible organisations, working together to not only create the cutting-edge creative technology but to create a more prosperous, equitable and sustainable West of England.

MyWorld is using investment into creative technology to stimulate growth and societal change in the industry and in the region. It’s the place where science, engineering and art meet and we want to make them all accessible for everyone. The MyWorld programme provides opportunities for businesses of all sizes to:

  • Discover: Access pre-market trends in technology via an extensive research programme in our partner universities.
  • Build: Accelerate product and process prototype development through access to innovation funding and production facilities.
  • Learn: Access MyWorld skills development training or create a talent pool ahead of the market through academic and industry short courses. 

All of this in one, world leading, collaborative, interconnected region in the West of England.  www.myworld-creates.com 

Interested in Sandbox? Find out about the previous sandbox box: Playable City Sandbox