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2026





8-9 JULY 2026, SCHOOL OF DIGITAL ARTS


MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY


SODA, Manchester Met Uni

CONFERENCE THEME:



The cultural and creative disruption of the first two years of generative AI technology was captured by Storytellers + Machines 2024 performers, artists and academics. Now as an artistic and academic community we speculate on, imagine, or perhaps plot the end of A.I. and wonder what might come after.   
KEYNOTE:

PINAR YOLDAS

Keynote on 8th July 2026

︎Award-winning artist and professor
︎University of California San Diego


Pinar Yoldas is an research-based artist and academic whose work has a focus on the anthropocene, futurism, and feminist technoscience.

Yoldas highlights the term "speculative biology" in comparison to experimental architecture of the 1990s, as design of tissues, organs, organisms, biological systems, ecotypes and ecosystems in order to catalyze creative critical thinking. 

She brings with her the mesmerising Kitty A.I. (2016) which narrates its future role as governor of the world. 

She is a Guggenheim fellow and a MacDowell Colony fellow.

PANEL:

POSSIBLE FUTURES

n-Space fellows

The first n-Space fellowship explores the question of governance in human and more-than-human collaboration with six artists. Here they discuss the possible futures through their practice and research during the fellowship to date. 

CHAIR: KIRSTY FAIRCLOUGH

Hannah Cobb
dmstfctn
Ed Fornieles
Leela Jadhav
Linda Rocco
Murad Khan


n-Space is collaboration Somerset House Studios, UAL Creative Computing Institute, Goldsmith’s Computing and Abandon Normal Devices with SODA