Read Alan Warburton's article about his animation in the Guardian
Image Empire, Dr. Alan Warburton’s new animated fairytale, helps describe how “large world models” fuse the real and the virtual together in potent new forms, bringing game logics to our working lives.
Alan will be joined by 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), John O’Shea (Creative Director and Co-CEO at the National Videogame Museum) and Hannah Redler-Hawes (Director of Data as Culture, the ODI). The panel will be chaired by Dr. Oonagh Murphy (Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at Goldsmiths, University of London).
You’ll hear all about 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. This webinar is definitely not one to miss!
Speakers
Maya is a cultural theorist who studies the transformations that occur in society, culture, and in technology, through adoption and application across different expert and niche publics. From 2021-2024, she was an Assistant Teaching Professor co-developing and co-directing LCFI’s master’s program (Mst) in AI, Ethics & Society. Prior to academia, Maya spent a decade as a researcher working with civil society organisations in India, SE Asia, and Europe on the promises and perils of freedom of speech and expression online. Maya is the author of Auto-correct: The fantasies and failures of AI, ethics, and the driverless car drawn from her doctoral thesis and was published in March 2025 by ArtEZ Press. An up-to-date list of her academic publications, talks, and other non-ficti0n writing are here.
John O'Shea is Creative Director and Co-CEO of the UK National Videogame Museum (NVM) and The BGI charity, whose mission is to transform lives with games. He heads-up ambitious new collections, exhibitions & learning activity at the museum, and leads on creative vision and research strands. Over the past decade John has directed cultural programming, digital art commissioning and research partnerships for major national galleries & museums. In 2025, on behalf of NVM, he curated “Videogames Transforming Lives” a new interactive exhibition for the UK Pavillion at Osaka World Expo 2025, in partnership with The Department of Business and Trade (UK).
Hannah Redler-Hawes, Director of Data as Culture art programme and Associate Curator the ODI
Hannah joined the ODI team in 2014. As a contemporary art curator she specialises in emerging and trans-disciplinary practices which raise social, cultural and ethical questions within the fields of art, data, science and technology.
With a special interest in collaboration, participation and new technologies, Hannah works with artists and a range of collaborators to develop audience-focused projects for museums, galleries, academic organisations, corporate contexts, digital space and the public realm. Key curatorial projects have addressed cosmology, climate science, biomedical science, the ways we use data to sense, measure and predict the world, energy, photography, addiction and recovery and the psychological impact of organ donation.
Before setting up as an independent curator and member of the ODI team Hannah worked at the Science Museum Group for 17 years, primarily as Head of Science Museum Arts Programme. Prior to that she co-founded and co-directed an early London digital media start-up company. She regularly speaks and writes on multidisciplinary art and curating practices, and enjoys teaching and lecturing to art, photography and curating students.
Hannah originally trained in Fine Art at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and Norwich School of Art and in Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art.
Alan Warburton is an applied media theorist working directly with CGI, AI, XR, VR and ML between art, industry and academia. An advocate of digital literacy and the creative industries, his critical video essays discuss software, labour, gender and visual epistemology and are fixtures in university curriculums worldwide. His work has featured in Neural, the Financial Times, It’s Nice That, The Guardian, METAL, Filmmaker Magazine, Sight and Sound and Creative Applications and is archived by the British Film Institute. He’s exhibited in landmark group shows at Carnegie Museum of Art, Somerset House, Centquatre Paris, Baltic Gateshead and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and has had solo exhibitions at Arebyte and The Photographers’ Gallery. He’s also undertaken lectures, workshops and residencies at Birkbeck, ÉCAL, Central St Martins, Carnegie Mellon University, the Architectural Association School, Somerset House, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Science Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Dr Oonagh Murphy’s research and practice focus on Responsible AI and the social impacts of digital technologies in the culture and society. She has led AI strategy and governance work with Arts Council England, and advised the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on AI and cultural innovation. Oonagh is an ODI-certified Data Ethics Professional and is internationally recognised for her work supporting ethical, inclusive, and accountable AI adoption across cultural and creative organisations.
Harmeet Chagger, Head of Digital and Innovation, The Space
Harmeet Chagger leads on innovation, immersive and interactive projects for The Space looking at how digital innovation increases access and reaches new audiences, and is the founder of Surfing Light Beams, a media studio creating immersive experiences and playable adventures with communities at the heart of the process.
Having researched Cultural Innovation at the Futurelab, Ars Electronica, and worked on behaviour change campaigns as Digital Strategist at M&C Saatchi, Harmeet uses the premise of immersive storytelling, fused with the artistic expertise of other disciplines, to create a space where the inventor, the artist, the intellect, the communicator and the leader can be harnessed and for individuals to recognise how valuable their contribution is within a community, a society, an organisation or as a global citizen.
Image Empire is commissioned by the BGI / National Videogame Museum, working with curator Hannah Redler-Hawes, in collaboration with the Open Data Institute Data as Culture & Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge (CFI). Image Empire has been made possible by The Space, supported by Arts Council England.