Future Inventions

What happens when algorithms enter our most sacred spaces? 🌀 In this edition of Future Inventions, we’ll trace how humans have always sought to use technology in pursuit of something beyond ourselves. We see this in  the rise of spirit photography in response to widespread grief during the Black plague or early understandings of electricity as magic  and we see this today through phenomena like people turning to AI for spiritual guidance or to connect with deceased loved ones thorugh grief bots. We’ll expand on  the spiritual and dimensions of artificial intelligence and machine learning, specifically how machines mirror our longing for connection and transcendence. We’ll also look at artists who work with these intersections, from AI-generated ancestral portraits to technological practices that transform code into ceremony. Note that we are not advocating for this kind of use, but more so interested in the context behind it as well as some of the harms such as AI psychosis. If you have similar questions or curiosities, join us! 
 📍 London Wednesday April 22nd, 2026 6 - 8pm UsTwo Studios, Shoreditch  📍Abuja Thursday April 30th, 2026 4pm - 6pm Institut Francais  📍Virtual Wednesday April 29th, 2026 7pm - 9pm BST/WAT

Throwing it back to last month’s session at Newspeak House where we got into the sticky and nitty gritty about our feelings about AI and creative work. We talked through our anxieties, how capitalism influences our relationship to technology, what creativity really means to us and which parts of the creative process we hold sacred and why. Then we experimented with a few games that Lex had built using locally hosted AI models, and reflected on what else AI could look like with play and collaboration in mind instead of ripping off artists work or being sold as a replacement for thinking. Thank you to those who joined for a fun and critical session! Until next time :)

The March edition of the Future Inventions Workshop @futureinventions.lab was beyond amazing. 👾♾️ Would you attend the next Future Inventions Workshop?

Our next two events are happening this March in London and Abuja! 𝗔𝗜 𝘅 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗰: 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 Can AI be a creative collaborator without becoming the author? How do we stay in the driver’s seat? This session explores the tension between AI as catalyst and AI as crutch through conversation, hands-on experimentation, and a short show and tell. Think pose detection, image generation, and tools that look nothing like ChatGPT. We’ll be using a custom-built tool and will not be using LLMs or software from companies we ethically disagree with. 📍 Abuja: March 27th, 4:00 PM @ Institut Français du Nigeria, 52 Libreville Crescent, Wuse 2 📍 London: March 30th, 6:30 PM @ Newspeak House, E2 7DG No prior experience needed. Bring a laptop if you have one. Food provided 🍕 👉 Link in bio for details & registration

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our February in-person session on AI x Memory: Community Archives, Datasets and Knowledge! We had an expansive conversation around how we think of data, and what kind of models might serve our personal/ collective needs. We also got to create and test our own dataset of sentimental objects through a tool that Lex made, ‘This Room Knows’ 🌀 We’re really looking forward to March’s session, coming up on the 30th (more details tomorrow) ✨

Ending February with a bang! 💥 Our last 2 events in our AI X Memory series, one online and one for our Abuja community: 🗂️Reclaiming the Record: AI, Community Datasets, and Cultural Memory [Virtual] 📍February 24th, 7-9pm GMT We will be joined by Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes  (AI X Design/ Temporality Lab), Ayoola Gbade-Bello (Kintrace AI), and Ethel-Ruth Tawe(@listening2images / C& ) for a roundtable discussion on AI x Memory. Each guest will share a provocation from their work and this will be followed by an open discussion with attendees 🎟️Tickets in bio, there are a few left! 📋Memory x AI: Datasets, Archives, and Knowledge [Abuja] 📍February 26th, 5:00PM WAT Do we need large language models? How can AI execute smaller functions, serve a community purpose, or act as a container for niche purposes? What data practices can we create that feel more aligned with our values?  We will start with a in-depth lecture covering data colonialism, the politics of memory and digital archiving practices, the concept of small AI and case studies to illustrate AI’s role in knowledge production. We will then move into groups for collaboration where we will create a shared dataset, query it using a small AI model, and outline some collective data principles. No familiarity or experience with AI or human-computer interaction is needed! 🎟️🚗Tickets are free and we have the means to pay for 10 people’s transport. Please email us if you need this at [email protected].

Hello 🌍! We are back with another critical AI literacy session to unpack *what* machines think and why that it is. While irreputable sources and stolen work is a big issue with commercial large language models, there’s also the question of 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐞𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞𝐝?. ❓ 𝐔𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐲, 𝐝𝐨 𝐰𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬? ❓ 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐈 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐞 𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞, 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐬? ❓𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐬?  These are some of the questions we’re asking ourselves and hope to explore with you, if you’ll join us: 📌 February 18th, 2026 6:30pm - 9pm Newspeak House, E2 7DG 💭 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘰? We will start with a in-depth lecture covering data colonialism, memory work and digital archiving practices, the concept of small AI and case studies to illustrate AI’s role in knowledge production. We will then move into groups for collaboration where we will create a shared dataset, query it using a small AI model, and outline some collective data principles. No familiarity or experience with AI or human-computer interaction is needed! 🎟️ Tickets and all details in bio, and email/DM if you need a free one!

⚙️Thank you to everyone who joined us for a special kick-off to Cycle Two, Intro to AI: How Machines Think. What a night and an honour to see how much this community has grown in a year - thank you for trusting us with your curiosity and for showing up with your full selves to have some enriching and at times difficult conversations around how we relate to technology. A big big thank you to @slinky.sticky for their brilliantly led creative workshop that helped us simulate data tagging and image generation. We touched on so much including: - What datasets reveal about how knowledge is defined and who chooses what’s important - The complicated nature of truth - Capturing/ documenting our histories for preservation vs resisting surveillance and keeping what is sacred protected - The friction between thinking computationally vs with heart - What ethical uses of AI looks like, if at all possible 🚨If you missed it, fear not! We have a few spaces left for our virtual session next week Tuesday! Link in our bio to sign up.

📢 WE’RE BACK 📢 Hello, it’s been a while! We are pleased to announce our Autumn 2025 - Spring 2026 cycle, a series of educational events dedicated to demystifying AI through an artistic lens and offering critical perspectives on this rapidly growing yet largely unchecked technology. This season, we want to dedicate time to educating ourselves on how this technology is developed and functions. To be clear, *WE ARE NOT PRO-AI or advocating for its use.* We believe that technology is a reflection of its maker and to reimagine invention outside of the frameworks that Big Tech impose, more people need to be informed and involved in these conversations around technology - a sphere which has historically been white, male, and tied to class. This is why we’ve designed the upcoming cycle to explore the basics and get into counter/experimental uses of AI as well. 📅 To kick-us off, we will begin with Intro to AI: How Machines Think,  a creative hands-on workshop co-led with designer and educator, Laurent Yee. ✨London - November 4th, 6:30pm, Newspeak House (Shoreditch) ✨Virtual - November 25th, 7pm ✨Abuja - To Be Confirmed This session invites participants to take part in a manual data tagging + image generation exercise to  better understand how machine learning works. We will start with a brief presentation and then move into groups for collaboration and discussion. 🎟️ All details and tickets are in the link in our bio! £5 suggested donation or free if low income/unwaged (limited) . New website is under construction so please use the link in our bio instead of future-inventions.net for now

We spent our summer reflecting, researching, and learning 📝 Throw back to July,when Yaa and Lex joined the @rca_designfutures programme for their end of year symposium and final presentations. It was an honour to share our work and hear from brilliant practitioners in the futures field including Andy Marsden (NESTA) and Anna Gerber @huwd.platform . We were also lucky enough to get to give feedback to some of the final year students’ thesis projects which included so many brilliant projects looking at topics including climate migration in 2050 and developing community chronic pain intervention clinics. As summer has officially ended, we’re gearing up for an exciting announcement and can’t wait to bring people into what we’ve been planning. More news soon, save the date 04.11.25

And just like that, it’s a wrap for cycle one! What a journey, thank you so much to everyone who has engaged with our first round of programming, what an honour to be trusted with your time and to receive your contributions as we build out this pop-up community tech school 🧑🏾‍💻 Since November 2024, we have: - held 12 events - built a community in London, Abuja and online -engaged over 340 people - pushed ourselves to ask more questions, learn together, and think critically about how technology is developed and used A huge thank you to those who have made this possible including @paolorizzi (Studio Experience Lead @ustwo ), @adwoa_ob (assistant civic curator at Studio Voltaire) and @odessawarren_ (assistant curator at Tate Modern) We are now taking a break for the summer to dream, reflect, and plan Cycle two which will start in October! Maybe we’ll pop back up with smaller programs in between, let’s see ✨ 🎨 by @sanges_archive

Reflecting back on our final event for Cycle One, virtual presentations and a closing panel featuring the brilliant @nataliepaneng_ , @ariciano and @thediniverse on the theme of Futuring Towards Freedom 🔮 So many gems were shared and we’re pleased to have now uploaded the video on YouTube so you can watch it back to hear more about their work and thoughts on the role of speculation in reimagining how we think of/ use technology. Thank you again to our panellists and the engaged group who joined us as well ✨ Link in Bio.