The ARLIS Conference Working Party 2024 are excited to announce the ARLIS UK & Ireland Annual Conference 2024, to be held at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, Granary Square, King’s Cross, London, from 2-4 July 2024.
Artificial Visions: Navigating the Intersection of AI and Art Libraries
At this year’s ARLIS UK & Ireland Annual Conference we want to give space to the playful, critical and very human ways in which art librarians are adapting in the world of artificial intelligence. We’ve invited contributors to investigate the role of emerging technologies (including machine learning, generative AI, and natural language processing) in the context of art and design libraries and archives.
We hope to address questions such as:
· How are these tools already being used in creative practice, academic research and writing?
· How does AI technology disrupt established library models and processes?
· How do we educate ourselves on the practical uses and the ethical considerations of these technologies? Are we responsible for educating our users to use these tools critically?
· How can we balance our enthusiastic forays into AI while thoughtfully questioning and assessing its (current and future) impact? What are the discussions that are happening, and what are the conversations that need to happen?
· How can we work most usefully to support the practice of artists who are engaging with AI in their work?
The questions are many and answers are still emerging, and we recognise that delegates will be at various stages of their exploration of this field (and may even not have embarked on it yet). We invite all who are willing to share their stories, hopes, concerns, questions and ideas and we will be offering playful, practical and creative workshops, as well as fascinating talks, that will allow us to come together to discover and debate the impact of these AI technologies in a supportive environment.
Our programme encompasses a range of academic and non-academic content We encourage anyone who is inspired by or engaging with our theme to attend the conference, whether you are a student, art library worker, curator, academic, artist, early career researcher or independent scholar.
We are thrilled to share that keynote speeches will be presented by Pam Young, Head Registrar at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Juliette Sargeant, Director of Library and Student Services at the University of the Arts London, Martin Reinhart, Senior Lecturer at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and Jake Elwes, innovative contemporary artist.
Our complete programme of presentations, lightning talks and workshops is now available to view:
Conference 2024
This year the conference is hosted at Central Saint Martins in London. Delegates will have the opportunity to explore the building’s spaces and the CSM library and visits to local cultural venues in the Kings Cross area will be arranged.
We have a range of tickets which we hope will make the conference accessible, including Early Bird tickets, Concessionary tickets for freelance, independent and unwaged individuals, and Student tickets. Online tickets are available; segments of the programme will be live-streamed and links will be sent out the week before the conference.
There are a limited number of conference fee waivers available in the form of bursaries for current students registered on a Library course in the UK or Ireland and library workers working towards their CILIP chartership. Please contact us to register your interest.
We look forward to seeing you there!