Remixing Better Images of AI. Levö x Institute of Machine Unlearning

Stemming from the ongoing Archival Images of AI project developed within AIxDESIGN, this workshop is an invitation to collectively unlearn what AI is supposed to look like, and to imagine otherwise. In this hands-on (and fully offline) session, we’ll reduce our collective screen time and pick up scissors instead. Using the Archival Images of AI Playbook, we’ll create new, messier, more situated representations of AI shaped by lived experience, not just machine fantasies. Together, we say bye to glowing blue brains and glossy white robots, and hi to softer, stranger, more situated images of AI.
Together we are gonna ponder:

1. Why does AI always seem to have the same face and who decided on it?`
2. What are we really communicating when we picture intelligence as white robots, glowing brains or terminators?`
3. Can collage be a way to challenge dominant tech narratives and imagine different futures?`

What are we gonna do?

• Dive into a short intro on the politics of AI imagery: who makes it, who it excludes, and what stories it tells
• Browse all sorts of materials as well as preselected folder of weird, wonderful, outdated, and overlooked pages and cut-outs
• Cut, rip, glue and remix images to craft better images (read: more grounded, weird, plural) visions of AI
• Leave with a collage of your own, and maybe someone else’s too? <3
• Possibility to be featured in a collaborative zine published after the workshop *(with your consent, of course)
  What are we gonna unlearn?

Imaginary of AI as abstract, clean, and far away, and instead see it as already here, entangled in our drawers, screens, habits, and hands. We unlearn the idea that AI is neutral or inevitable, and reclaim our agency to picture it otherwise, pixel by pixel, paper scrap by paper scrap. Also: the idea that "serious" work doesn’t include glue sticks.

For whom?

Open to anyone curious about AI, collage, or why all tech illustrations look like the same five stock photos. No background in tech or design needed, but artists, designers, gardeners, researchers, students, policy nerds, people who like magazines, people who hate them > all welcome.

Tools / Materials

• scissors, glue, crafty materials, magazines (provided)
• check out Archival Images of AI playbook for a sneak peek at the kinds of things you might make
• no technical knowledge or skill necessary, but at minimum two working fingers needed (for cutting, mostly) 👀

Important Information:

• The workshop fee includes all materials and the welcome drink.
• Cancellations are possible only if made more than 5 days before the event.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

Location: Levö, Rua de Arroios 6, Lisbon.

Date and Time: October 4th, 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM (2 hours workshop) 1:00 – 2:00 PM (Free time for final touches and networking)

Host or Publisher Levö