Image Empire – a new short film from Alan Warburton

Image Empire is an animated fairytale about the fusion of the real and the virtual within contemporary AI models. The film forms part of a research project undertaken by Alan Warburton which also includes a research paper and a series of satellite events.

The film is based on doctoral research undertaken at Birkbeck’s Vasari Centre for Art & Technology. It was commissioned by the National Videogame Museum in collaboration with the Open Data Institute (ODI) and Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.

The ODI hosted a webinar on 6 May to discuss the content of the film. The panellists explored what AI can and can’t do, what effects a collapse of real and virtual could have on visual culture, and if we’re living in a post-truth world. The participants were as follows:

• Harmeet Chagger, Head of Digital and Innovation at The Space
• Dr Maya Indira Ganesh, Associate Director of Research Culture & Partnerships at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence
• Chair: Dr Oonagh Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at Goldsmiths, University of London
• John O’Shea, Creative Director and Co-CEO at the National Videogame Museum
• Hannah Redler-Hawes, Director of Data as Culture, the ODI
• Dr Alan Warburton

You can watch a recording of the event below:

Useful links

• Image Empire field guide
• Alan Warburton’s webpage
• More about the ODI webinar
• Grimes joining LinkedIn is artwashing at its most brazen. I should know – I released my new film there, article in The Guardian by Alan Warburton

Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.

Lucy Smith is Senior Managing Editor for AIhub.