New call for papers for a special issue on questions of Ground Truth in relation to Synthetic Data, edited with the amazing Beth Coleman.
This themed issue examines the persistent problem of "ground truth" in AI. It focuses on the growing reliance on synthetic—or artificially generated—data for training purposes instead of real-world observations. The absence of real-world references in synthetic data amplifies the lack of ground, renewing debates about its meaning. Consequently, definitions and operationalizations of ground truth vary greatly between and within disciplines. For example, in health sciences and demographics, “synthetic” largely refers to preserving differential privacy; while in the rapidly expanding machine learning domain, synthetic data sets serve as training data outside the scope of observable phenomena.
We welcome papers from disciplinary positions including but not limited to STS, critical data and AI studies, economics, finance, computer science, health sciences, critical and human geography, sociology, and the humanities that provide new research, review papers or position paper.
/core/journals/cambridge-forum-on-ai-culture-and-society/announcements/call-for-papers/between-model-and-world-synthetic-data-and-ground-truth
Next Mon-wed - join us if you are in Boston!
Path of Awareness is an artistic walking format that explores space through conscious movement and listening. This Boston Chinatown edition responds to layered architecture and the constant presence of Interstate 90, whose sound shapes the area’s atmosphere. Through slow, attentive walking, participants tune into subtle acoustic shifts—echoes between buildings, masked and emerging voices, traffic rhythms, and even their own footsteps. Shoes become instruments; walking becomes a dialogue with architecture. Since 2012, the project has been realized in cities including Berlin, Linz, New York, Tehran, Mexico City, and Marseille. This iteration continues the work at a moment of significant urban transformation in Chinatown.
katrinem’s practice explores the relationship between sound, space, and movement. Her projects reveal the musicality of everyday movement, often transforming ordinary objects (like shoes or brooms) into instruments and inviting collective participation in public space.
April 28, 4–6pm
Soundwalk & Performance
with katrinem + Semantic Matter Lab (Jesus Ocampo Aguilar, Paula Martin Rivero)
📍Chandler/Tremont Plaza, Boston
→ Register: /2026/program.html#apr28
April 29, 2–4pm
Artist Talk / Panel
📍 Harvard ArtLab, 140 N Harvard St
→ Register: /2026/program.html#apr29
April 27, 12–2pm
Workshop with katrinem on location
→ Contact [email protected] to join
Co-produced by Walking Festival of Sound, Goethe-Institut Boston, CAMD / Northeastern University, and Harvard ArtLab.
Path of Awareness - Sounding Chinatown / @katrinem_27
Walk. Listen. Attend.
This guided walk and artistic talk invites you to experience Chinatown through sound - traffic rhythms, echoes between buildings, voices, footsteps.
Move at a steady pace. Let your ears open. Expand the habitual filters.
Shoes become instruments. Walking becomes dialogue.
The path is the destination.
Performative Walk: 28th April 4-6pm
Artist Talk: 29th April 2-4pm @harvardartlab
For more information and to book free tickets check the Eventbrite link in our bio.
Organised in collaboration with Semantic Matter Lab, @off.diet & Goethe Institute Boston.
From exploring the soundscapes of moonlit Bostonian sidewalks at dusk to celebrating International Dawn Chorus Day via an immersive sound installation, where sunrise wakes forests, one time zone after the next… From addressing the effects of noise pollution on human and more-than-human well-being to dissolving into a sonified realm of wireless signals, pervading our technologized lives… From being guided through the historical sonorities of Indigenous landscapes to exposing our sensorium to the hisses and buzzes of infrastructures that sustain modern lifestyles…
. . . the program for the 2026 edition of the Walking Festival of Sound is now live!
After visiting Stockholm, Newcastle, Kraków, Edinburgh, Seoul, Vancouver, and Zurich, the festival is coming to Boston and Cambridge! We are extremely proud to present the program.
Over the course of three weeks, the festival intends to craft a temporary zone for rewiring our senses by giving priority to a range of broadly understood walking and listening practices. Since the festival’s inception, our goal has been to rethink how we shape, relate to, and care for our environments by slowing down our movements and our sensorium. If the turn to walking can be understood as a critique of the acceleration that has become the normative mode of movement through our built and natural environments, then listening challenges the dominance of optical and visual regimes that govern how we navigate the world today.
Given the richness of contributions to this year’s edition, we are convinced that by stepping into this temporary zone, we stand a good chance of walking out of it with renewed attention to what, and who, surrounds us in our cities.
I am deeply grateful to the many people whose warmth, support, conviviality, and passion has enabled this program to take shape beyond my expectations. Heartfelt thanks to @breeedwards and @kato_oatk at @harvardartlab , @susyq40 and Jim Stockard at @loebfellows and @harvardgsd , @johnpax73 at @shelemay_sound_lab , @off.diet , #GarnetteCadogan my fellow Loebs @loebfellows , @tim4shaw , the co-founder of @walking_festival_of_sound & every contributor to the program which is linked in the bio.
Dietmar Offenhuber @off.diet (Northeastern University @northeasterncamd ) explores the aesthetics of data infrastructures—the invisible systems shaping cities, culture, and technology.
His work reminds us that the structures behind our data are themselves forms of design.
Moderator: Kim Albrecht @kimfalbrecht
Panel 1 - Data as Artistic Medium
Data|Art 2025
Watch the full presentation now on our YouTube Channel - link in bio.
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Data|Art 2025 took place at Harvard University on June 11-12, hosted by Barabasi Lab and metaLAB (at) Harvard @metalabharvard members Albert-László Barabási @barabasi , Jeffrey Schnapp @jschnapp , Kim Albrecht @kimfalbrecht , and Sarah Newman @sarahwnewman
The symposium explored how data configures aesthetic, social, and epistemic structures through art, science, and design.
#DataArtSymposium #DataMeetsArt #Harvard #ArtAndScience #AIAndArt #Northeastern #NortheasternUniversity #NetSci #NetworkScience #DataArt #DatainArt
“The whole community around here… we have a common vocabulary, but we don’t talk to each other that often because we are part of different communities, but Haystack brought us together.”
During Session 3, Fab Lab Residents Dietmar Offenhuber (@off.diet )and Orkan Telhan (@otelhan ) worked on reservoir computing and autographic systems, exploring unconventional methods of computing to create physical systems that grow, live, learn, and think with us. They explored algorithms with plants and microorganisms, built mycelium computers, and brought analog, digital, and biological ideas together to explore a new craft of intelligence.
Selected for their expertise in craft and digital fabrication, the Fab Lab Residents undertake independent research and experimental projects aimed at advancing the field of craft through innovative techniques and materials. The Fab Lab Resident program provides an opportunity for Residents to push the boundaries of craft, explore new processes, and contribute to ongoing research in the Fab Lab.
🎥: Interview with resident artists Orkan Telhan and Dietmar Offenhuber interspersed with work samples, starting with text “Fab Lab Residents - Dietmar Offenhuber + Orkan Telhan” set to the song “Thoughtful Ambient” by AudioCoffee.
#HaystackMountainSchoolOfCrafts #CraftSchoolExperience #CraftWorkshops #CraftArtists #STEAM #HaystackSchool #CraftCommunity #Haystack2025 #MadeAtHaystack #MakersMovement #CraftAndTechnology #FabLabNetwork #DigitalFabrication #ResidencyProgram #VisitDeerIsle #DownEastMaine #BlueHillPeninsulaChamberOfCommerce
The craft of composting.
We finished our two week fablab residency at Haystack. @off.diet and I had a chance to explore the thermodynamic conditions of composting for computation.
Can we build a self-learning physical AI model from what is in the compost? Can we train neural weights as polluting chemicals such as ammonia, chlorine or metals degrade and become more dominant than others? Can such models offer more ecological modes of machine learning that can predict changes in the environment?
This work is continuation of the reservoir computing work we have started this year for the Venice Architecture Biennial. We are now looking for ways to build reservoirs with purely analog electronics sensing the physical materials they are made of.
There are many different types of biological and chemical intelligences around us. How can we make them more visible?
Our prototype compost computer is a mini model for what is possible. Not fully functional yet, but can learn three types of changes as they influence biofilm formations over time…
We are very grateful for @haystack_school for giving us the opportunity to bring traditions of biocrafting, composting, and analog electronics together and think with our hands.
#reservoircomputing #biocrafting #craftschool
It was my pleasure to be a guest on the fantastic pondering AI podcast with Kimberly Nevala.
In our episode on synthetic data, we are looking at the fundamental weirdness of synthetic data, if we understand data as symbolic representations of the world.
AUDIO | https://pondering-ai.transistor.fm/episodes/ep76
VIDEO | https://youtu.be/9njJfMaMXVM?si=hd2jqdkWSsvkFoWt
