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How does Machine Learning re shape the landscape of art and design?

Join us on May 15–16 for the re shape Forum for Artificial Intelligence in Art and Design, where we’ll explore AI’s evolving role in creativity, interaction, and society. From playful experiments that challenge conventional AI use to critical discussions on its ethical and ecological impact, this event brings together visionary designers, artists, and researchers. We’ll question dominant AI narratives, rethink design beyond human-centered approaches, and imagine regenerative futures where technology coexists with the more-than-human world. Be part of the conversation as we reshape AI’s role in art, design, and beyond!

Speakers

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Elisa Giaccardi

Design After Extraction: AI and the More-than-Human Turn

Elisa Giaccardi is Full Professor of Design at Politecnico di Milano and 2024 Ambassador of Italian Design in the World. Her international career spans five countries and 25 years of research at the intersection of design, technology, and post-humanist thought. Over the years, she has co-founded and contributed to several interdisciplinary research and educational programs across the world. She now leads the Design Intelligences Institute, a multispecies collective addressing planetary challenges through more-than-human design.

Niko Klein

Lighting a fire with damp wood.

After graduating in 2017 from the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, Niko has worked since 2018 on Figma's editor, with a constant focus on prototyping features.

Maria Luce Lupetti

Drawing windows into better timelines

Maria Luce Lupetti is an Assistant Professor in Interaction and Critical Design at the Department of Architecture and Design at Politecnico di Torino. Her research is concerned with all matters of human entanglement with the artificial world, especially concerning complex technologies such as AI and robotics. She is the PI of "Participatory Design Justice for Ethical AI Transitions'' a three-year project funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research, under the FIS2 program. She also serves as Exhibit X section editor for ACM Interactions Mag.

Niklas Muhs

How Do We Want to Interface With AI?

After graduating in 2017 from the HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd, Niko has worked since 2018 on Figma’s editor, with a constant focus on prototyping features.

Iohanna Nicenboim

Designing-with AI

Iohanna Nicenboim is a postdoctoral researcher at Delft University of Technology, where she completed her PhD with honors as a Microsoft Research Fellow. Her current research explores Regenerative AI and More-than-Human Design sensibilities. Over the past eight years, she has developed a More-than-Human Design approach to AI (Designing-with AI), publishing extensively in international journals and organizing workshops and panels at leading conferences. She also co-edited a special issue of the HCI Journal on the More-than-Human Turn in Design. With a multidisciplinary career spanning art, design, industry, and academia, Iohanna brings a unique perspective to the intersection of technology and more-than-human interactions.

Andreas Refsgaard

Beyond prompting - silly interactive AI

Andreas Refsgaard is an artist and creative coder based in Copenhagen. Andreas applies a humorous approach to the digital tools and their potential applications, purposes and values. His works often consists of imaginative and unconventional combinations of inputs and outputs allowing people to e.g. play music using eye-movement, generate memes or fake wikipedia pages from photos or transforming drawings of musical instruments into real compositions. His playful, wacky and often interactive works are characterised by a naive and openminded approach, which questions and exposes both the possible benefits and drawbacks of the applied technologies in a straightforward and unassuming manner.

Tobias Revell

Design and the Social Construction of Artificial Intelligence

Tobias Revell is an artist, designer, researcher and educator from London specialising in futures and technology through critical practice. He is Design Futures Lead at Arup where he leads the Foresight team in delivering large-scale strategic futures and sustainability projects for internal and external clients and developing futures literacy across the firm. He specialises in the use of design approaches to deepen engagement, enhance the quality of outcomes and question underlying assumptions in tackling complex problems. He exhibits, writes and lectures internationally on futures, art, design, technology and imagination.

Eryk Salvaggio

Feel the Noise: Notes from an Adversarial AI Artist

Eryk Salvaggio is a blend of artist, hacker, and policy researcher. He is a visiting professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Humanities, Computation and Design; a research at the metaLAB at Harvard University, an emerging technology research advisor to the Siegel Family Endowment, a writing fellow with Tech Policy Press, and a Gates Scholar pursuing a PhD in Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge. He is the curator of "Signal to Noise" at the National Communications Museum in Melbourne, blending contemporary and historical artworks and instruments that reframe epistemologies of noise.

Elisa Giaccardi

Design After Extraction: AI and the More-than-Human Turn

Niko Klein

Lighting a fire with damp wood.

Maria Luce Lupetti

Drawing windows into better timelines

Niklas Muhs

How Do We Want to Interface With AI?

Iohanna Nicenboim

Designing-with AI

Andreas Refsgaard

Beyond prompting - silly interactive AI

Tobias Revell

Design and the Social Construction of Artificial Intelligence

Eryk Salvaggio

Feel the Noise: Notes from an Adversarial AI Artist

Schedule

Wednesday
May 14

  • 16:00-17:00 Arrival and Registration

  • 17:00-18:30 Meet & Greet Session; HfG Tour

Thursday
May 15

  • 09:30-09:45 Arrival and Coffee

  • 09:45-10:00 Opening Remarks Welcome address by the symposium organizers

  • 10:00-11:00 Elisa Giaccardi

  • 11:00-11:30 Break

  • 11:30-12:30 Tobias Revell

  • 12:30-14:00 Lunch Break

  • 14:00-15:00 Maria Luce Lupetti

  • 15:00-15:30 Break

  • 15:30-16:15 Niklas Muhs

  • 16:15-16:45 Break

  • 16:45-17:45 Eryk Salvaggio

  • 17:45-18:15 Break

  • 18:15-19:00 Niko Klein

  • 19:00-19:15 Closing Remarks

Friday
May 16

  • 09:00-09:30 Arrival and Coffee

  • 09:30-10:30 TBA

  • 10:30-11:00 Break

  • 11:00-12:00 Iohanna Nicenboim

  • 12:00-12:30 Break

  • 12:30-13:15 Andreas Refsgaard

  • 13:15-13:30 Closing Remarks

KITeGG

KITeGG - A collaborative project of five universities for the integration of AI in the design teaching.

The joint project "KITeGG - Making AI tangible and comprehensible: Connecting technology and society through design" explores how AI can be integrated into design education. Project partners are the Mainz University of Applied Sciences, the Offenbach University of Art and Design, the Schwäbisch Gmünd University of Applied Design, the Cologne International School of Design and the Trier University of Applied Sciences.

As “designers of the future” students should have knowledge of current and future relevant technologies as well as profound technical knowledge and the ability to systematically consider user contexts and ethical and legal issues. They should be able to use machine learning reflectively as a tool and material for design. To this end, new teaching formats, tools, symposia and publications are to be developed within the framework of the project over the next three years. KITeGG is one of over 50 funded projects within the framework of the funding initiative "Künstliche Intelligenz in der Hochschulbildung".

AI+D Lab

The AI+D Lab is the place at HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd for research and teaching that combines artificial intelligence and design. In the form of generated images and videos, intelligent sensor systems and language-based interfaces, Machine Learning will be increasingly used in design practice. We will explore the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence in design: How can AI technologies be integrated into the design process and how does this change the work of designers? What role can designers play in the (co-)design of AI-based applications and how do they need to be prepared for this in their education and how can we design desirable futures with AI technologies?

In order to be able to use AI technologies in the design process, it is important to build up sound knowledge about the possibilities and limitations of this technology. As a physical location, the lab is the first point of contact for students and teachers and provides the technical infrastructure for projects and experiments with different AI models and technologies. The AI+D Lab is part of KITeGG.

AI+D Team

Rahel Flechtner

Visiting professor

Jordi Tost

Visiting professor

Felix Sewing

AI+D Lab lead

Benedikt Groß

Project lead

Hartmut Bohnacker

Project lead

Christopher Pietsch

Research Associate

Moritz Hartstang

Research Associate

Maxime Beck

Intern in the field of AI, UX Design, and Programming

Contact

Hoch­schule für Gestal­tung Schwä­bisch Gmünd
Univer­sity of Applied Sciences
Rektor-Klaus-Straße 100
D‑73525 Schwä­bisch Gmünd Google Maps

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