The New Real

28/07/2025

Art meets AI meets environment.

✨ Inés Cámara Leret's 'The Overlay' blurs the line between real and synthetic.
🏢 Lex Fefegha's 'Thames Path 2040' imagines climate-transformed London.
📷 Keziah MacNeill’s 'Photographic Cues' explores future seeing.
🌊 Kasia Molga's 'How to Find the Soul of a Sailor' uses personal archives to understand intergenerational environmental change.

These works from The New Real Observatory don’t just depict change—they help us feel it.

Explore the art in The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Art and the Environment ----> www.newreal.cc/magazineeditiontwo


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Image credit: Keziah MacNeill

24/07/2025

Imagine saving the environment—by playing a game. 🎮🌳

AI-powered climate games like Carbon Island, Sky Farm Island, and EverForest engage players in eco-conscious decisions through play.

MeshMinds founder, Kay Poh Gek Vasey explores the immersive, interactive experiences that are teaching the next generation about carbon footprints, conservation, and sustainability her in article for The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Arts and the Environment.

With AI-generated art and logic powering these games, this might just be where climate awareness and behavioural change begin.

Read her full article ---> www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/could-ai-destroy-the-planet-or-might-ai-art-and-gaming-save-it


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Image credit: Kay Poh Gek Vasey via 'Sky Farm Island'

There are reasons to hope that AI can power data-driven insights that can help produce innovative solutions to the climate emergency, touching areas such as energy and water efficiency, biodiversity monitoring, and self-driving vehicles in hard to reach places. There are also real concerns about the

21/07/2025

Artists won’t be replaced by AI—but they will transform it.

Futurist artist and engineer Sophia Brueckner argues that artists and designers must not shy away from artificial intelligence—but instead engage with it critically, creatively, and ethically in The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Arts and the Evironment.

AI is changing the landscape of creative work—but like every medium before it (from the paint tube to the camera), it’s also unlocking new forms of expression. Artists like Brueckner, Trevor Paglen, Stephanie Dinkins, and Sougwen Chung are already using AI not just as a tool, but as a mirror—reflecting back the flaws, biases, and potential of the systems we’re building.

Brueckner reminds us: 'All the reasons to question AI—its energy use, ethical blind spots, and cultural implications—are the exact reasons why artists must engage with it.'

Creators are not just at risk in the AI era—they’re essential to shaping it.

Read Sophia’s full article ----> www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/artificial-intelligence-no-longer-sci-fi


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Image credit: Adam Harvey, 2019-2024 (ongoing) -- https://harvey.studio/exposingai

Now that AI is no longer science fiction, how might embracing it, while recognising its limitations and ethical implications, enable new kinds of creative expression by artists and designers concerned with ethics, justice and sustainability? Futurist artist/designer/engineer Sophia Brueckner shares

17/07/2025

Cambridge Associate Professor, Ramit Debnath makes a powerful case: we won’t solve the world’s biggest problems—like climate change, inequality, and digital injustice—without Responsible AI.

But what does that mean?

It’s not just technical solutions. It’s about:
🧠 Humans in the loop to validate high-stakes AI systems
🧑‍🎓 Social scientists exposing algorithmic bias and digital inequalities
🎭 Artists and storytellers making AI’s impact visible and visceral
📚 Philosophers asking: What values should AI systems prioritize?

From coral reef storytelling at the UN to AI-guided justice frameworks, the message is clear: To secure a sustainable future, AI must be inclusive by design.

Read his full article as a part of The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Arts and the Environment ----> www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/why-does-a-responsible-climate-action-ai-need-the-arts-and-humanities


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Image credit: Dall-E generated art in different style illustrating the impact of climate change on glaciers

Cambridge University’s Ramit Debnath explores the potential of Responsible AI (RAI) in addressing global challenges, and explains why social sciences, philosophy, the arts and humanities have a critical role to play in shaping AI system design and presenting us with the best chance of securing a s...

14/07/2025

What if we stopped asking how AI can “scale” and started asking how it can serve?

In her powerful essay for The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Arts and the Environment, Suhair Khan echos voices like Keolu Fox in advocating for Indigenous knowledge systems to guide how we build AI—and imagine our future.

From language preservation to decentralised design, Indigenous communities are already showing us better models.

Suhair argues that the tech world must:
- Respect sovereignty
- Seek meaningful consent
- Understand the difference between collaboration and extraction

Because AI developed without Indigenous perspectives risks repeating the very same colonial histories it promises to fix.

Read the full article → www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/beyond-human-centered-ai


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Image credit: terence b, https://www.pexels.com/photo/women-and-men-in-traditional-clothing-crouching-in-performance-19347243/

Technology entrepreneur and creative leader, Suhair Khan, explores the concept of Indigenous knowledge in relation to AI and planetary futures, and outlines why she agrees with National Geographic Explorer Keolu Fox that the key to harnessing the technology of tomorrow is centering traditions of the

10/07/2025

AI-powered forecasting tools are shaping decision-making in areas from agriculture to healthcare to climate-related conflict. But what happens when the people most affected by these forecasts have no say in how they’re made?

In The New Real's latest Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Art and the Environment, researcher Antonio Ballesteros-Figueroa examines the growing inequality between Global North and Global South in the development and deployment of AI infrastructure.

'The people whose lives might be affected by these forecasts should have some agency in the process of developing these systems.'

The takeaway? We must design AI with participation, transparency, and shared ownership.

Read the full article → www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/ai-and-the-global-north-south-divide


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Image credit: Adobe Firefly

AI can bring benefits globally, but it is energy intensive and, combined with existing inequalities in infrastructure, could reinforce power imbalances. Here, researcher in people environment studies and behavioural modelling, Antonio Ballesteros-Figueroa, reflects on this and on the need for increa

07/07/2025

Marine Scientist Sophie Mackaness shares what happens when data science meets digital art – and how that collaboration might just help save the planet in the newest edition of The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Art and the Environment.

Reflecting on her time with The New Real project, 'AWEN' Sophie explains how collaborative and deeply human the project was while learning that climate action doesn’t live in one dataset or discipline. It lives in the connection between them all.

Read her article now -----> www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/connecting-people-place-and-planet



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Image credit: Sophie Mackaness

Marine Scientist and Geoscience Research Consultant Sophie Mackaness reflects on the opportunities and challenges of building connections between science, art, and people.

03/07/2025

Can AI Clear the Net(Zero)?

Dr. Daga Panas, Data Scientist at the University of Edinburgh, dives headfirst into one of the toughest questions in tech today:

Can AI be net negative from a climate perspective?
(i.e. can it actually reduce more emissions than it produces?)

In her latest piece for The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Arts and the Environment, she explores the paradoxes at the core of environmental data science:

🌍 Using powerful algorithms to monitor glaciers and deforestation…
💧 ...while the same algorithms draw enormous energy and water.

"AI is not the solution or the villain – it’s a tool. The question isn’t ‘Can AI be net negative?’ It’s can we be?"

Read the full article → www.newreal.cc/magazine-edition-two/can-ai-clear-the-netzero


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Image credit: Daga Panas

Can AI be net negative from a climate perspective? University of Edinburgh Data Scientist Dr Daga Panas shares her thoughts on some of the paradoxes of working with big data and powerful algorithms for planetary good. 

30/06/2025

How do we make sense of environmental change in the age of AI?

The second edition of The New Real Magazine, Planetary Futures: AI, Art and the Environment explores this question—through the lens of artists, researchers, and technologists using AI to forge new ways of seeing the world.

Discover how creativity, data, and AI intersect to reveal the emotional, cultural, and human layers of the climate crisis.

It’s not just about understanding change—it’s about being moved to act on it.

Read the full magazine now ----> www.newreal.cc/magazineeditiontwo



Matjaž Vidmar
Courtney Bates
The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Futures Institute
Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh
The Alan Turing Institute
Creative Scotland
Drew Hemment

Image credit: 'How to Find the Soul of a Sailor' by Kasia Molga

25/04/2025

🚨 You're invited! 🚨
Join us for The New Real Salon #3 as we launch Doing AI Differently — our bold new international initiative rethinking AI through the lens of the arts, humanities, and data science. Led by The New Real and the Data-Centric Engineering at Alan Turing Institute; and brings together the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC/UKRI) and partner institutions in the UK and North America.

AI has transitioned from numerical outputs to text-based, qualitative ones, highlighting the need for the humanities, arts and social sciences to guide its development. Doing AI Differently brings humanities insights directly into AI design, fostering collaboration between disciplines and aims to address complex, context-dependent tasks in AI.

📅 29 April
🕕 6:00–8:30 PM
📍 Edinburgh Futures Institute
🍷 Free, public, accessible — with canapés!

Hear from leading voices in AI, narrative tech, emotion modelling, and science storytelling. Participate, mingle, and be part of the shift in how we shape AI’s future.

🎤 Speakers
Frank Keller, Professor in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Interests include computational narrative, and modeling key narrative concepts such as characters, plot turning points, and suspense.
Shauna Cocannon, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Durham. Investigates the intricate ways meaning emerges through interaction, and how empathy and emotion are operationalised computationally.
Wesley Goatley, Programme Director of Interaction Design and Visual Communication at University of the Arts London. Critical artist and researcher in AI, digital culture, and the climate crisis.
Gemma Milne, Lecturer at University of Glasgow and Science & Technology Journalist, Researcher, and Author and the Co-Host of the Radical Science podcast.
Cody Kommers, Research Associate in Doing AI Differently at the Alan Turing Institute.
Drew Hemment, Professor of Data Arts & Society, University of Edinburgh and The Alan Turing Institute.

Hosted by: Drew Hemment, Matjaz Vidmar, Cody Kommers & Courtney Bates

Event Program
6:00-6:10 - Catering and mingling
6:10-6:20 - Welcome: Drew Hemment & Courtney Bates
6:20-6:30 - Cody Kommers Talk
6:30-6:40 - Frank Keller Talk
6:40-7:00 - Cody Kommers & Frank Keller in conversation with Gemma Milne
7:00-7:10 - Q&A
7:10-7:20 - Shauna Concannon Talk
7:20-7:30 - Wesley Goatley Talk
7:30-7:50 - Shauna Concannon & Wesley Goatley in conversation with Drew Hemment
7:50-8:00 - Q&A
8:00-8:05 - Matjaz Vidmar Closing Remarks
8:05-8:30 - Mingle

👉 Reserve your spot now: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-new-real-salon-doing-ai-differently-tickets-1226026320729







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Part of Edinburgh Futures Institute's, Making Waves event season.

09/04/2025

A huge congratulations to the 2025 Building Near Futures course at The Edinburgh Futures Institute!

Last week we saw 18 short videos that showcased near-future scenarios on AI co-creation. From heritage preservation, disinformation, land conservation, employee productivity, technology overload, and more, the EFI Master's students sparked conversations about the future of human and AI relations. Laying out what can be, what should be, and the ramifications of future innovation.

This course is made up of students from a variety of majors and backgrounds and we look forward to seeing how they continue to approach future thinking in their disciplines.

-humanensembles

The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh Futures Institute
Edinburgh College of Art at the University of Edinburgh
Design Informatics

26/03/2025

The Edinburgh Futures Institute’s Building Near Futures course proudly invites you to join our students for the 2025 course showcase. We invite you to come and explore future ideas on Human-AI Ensembles on the 4th of April from 2pm - 4pm at EFI room 1.50.

Join us for an inspiring showcase of bold ideas and visionary thinking! Students from the Building Near Futures course at EFI present their future prototypes in a digital exhibition, exploring how humans and AI can collaborate to tackle pressing societal and environmental challenges.

Short form videos guide audiences through near-future scenarios and inspire conversation on AI co-creation. Will these ideas spark real-world change? Come see for yourself and be part of the discussion.

Free Entry - RSVP is required, sign up here: https://forms.office.com/e/gCsK9jXwV1

-humanensembles


edinburgh