[Air-L] Slow AI: Small AI, Esoteric AI, and Ancestral AI research launching at AIxDESIGN Festival May 1-3, 2025 in Amsterdam

[Natalia Stanusch]

Dear Colleagues,


I’m writing to you on behalf of AIxDESIGN, as you might be interested in our most recent research project "Slow AI" and its official launch taking place next week in Amsterdam.


AIxDESIGN is a global community and lab nourishing alternative, feminist, and participatory approaches to AI. After over a year of researching, brainstorming, and conspiring, we finalized "Slow AI;" "Slow AI" seeks to unpack and re-imagine alternative narratives for AI outside Silicon Valley ideologies. Inspired by counter movements like slow fashion and slow food, it aims to subvert corporate-first thinking by collectively researching & practicing new perspectives. We conceived 'Slow AI’ to work in an open-lab mode, inviting researchers, artists, theoreticians, and practitioners to engage with and comment on the anthology that we were compiling. Hence, Slow AI consists of three separate yet intertwining parts (or 'chapters'): Small AI, Esoteric AI, and Ancestral AI, which are published as three separate research reports that are now available to download at aixdesign.co/posts/slow-ai. I can speak for both the chapter that I had the pleasure to work on (Esoteric AI) as well as the two chapters made by my colleagues, that each part of "Slow AI” offers an overview as well as a deep dive towards practical and theoretical alternative paths. "Slow AI" aims to be a starting point, a form of a grounding for others to further built upon; a relevant resource for researchers, designers, artists, practitioners and thinkers interested in theorizing, reimagining, and creating various modes of engagement with AI.


For the official project launch, we are organizing an in-person AIxDESIGN 'On Slow AI’ Festival which will take place on 1-3 May, 2025, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Festival will include talks, workshops, exhibition, zine-making sessions, and more, with contributions by Eryk Salvaggio, Caroline Sinders, Hanna Barakat, Fabian Mosele, Gaston Welisch, Jazmin Morris, and more. You can find the information on the festival on the following website: https://aixdesign.co/festival.


Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.


Best regards,


Natalia

Natalia Stanusch
PhD Candidate
University of Amsterdam
ASCA | Media Studies

Recent publications:


Stanusch, N. (2025). ‘Esoteric AI.’ In Vieira, S., Flynn, P., and Piet, N. (Eds.) Slow AI. AIxDESIGN. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19187.03368. https://aixdesign.co/posts/esoteric-ai-chapter


Stanusch, N., Rogers, R., Baym, N., Liu, C., Shaw R., Katzenbach, C., Richter, V., Kannengießer S., Mollen, A., Brause, S. R., Yang, H., Schäfer, M., Zeng, J., Glawatzki, A. (2024). AI Industry Expectations and Underperforming Imaginaries. Panel presented at AoIR2024: The 25th Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. Sheffield, UK: AoIR. https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/download/14086/11951.


Stanusch, N. (2024). ‘Imgur, Image Macros, and Algorithms: Memes as Imaginary Issue Spaces of Users’ Encounters with Algorithmic Recommendations.’ Information, Communication & Society. DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2024.2420026.