UCL Network for Creative AI
Where Computational Intelligence Meets Human Imagination
Industry Collaborations, Enterprise & IP Development
The UCL Network for Creative AI actively engages with industry partners across the creative and cultural sectors through consultancies, joint R&D, and co-designed tools. We work with museums, studios, designers, and broadcasters to develop responsible, innovative applications of AI.
We support the development of new intellectual property through close collaboration with UCL Innovation & Enterprise, enabling spin-outs and commercialisation of research. Plans include establishing an Innovation & Art-Tech Studio at UCL East to prototype tools, host residencies, and incubate enterprise projects.
Convenors
Prof. Brigitta Zics – Professor of Computational Media, Research Lead, UCL Computational Media Research
Dr Fiona Zisch – Associate Professor, Bartlett School of Architecture
Dr Annarita Papeschi – Lecturer (Teaching), The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Dr Szilvia Ruszev – Lecture in Fiction Film Production, UCL Computational Media Research
Dr Anthony Bourached, Associate Professor of Machine Learning and Creative AI
Vision
Two Faces, One Humanity
The UCL Network for Creative AI imagines a digital Janus—one face turned forward, harnessing AI to push the frontiers of human creativity, not by replacing creators but by amplifying them. The other face turns back, applying AI to decode, restore, and re-animate cultural heritage.
At the core of our vision is the utilisation of AI for artistic and design innovation: to unlock new forms of expression, to co-create with machines, and to expand the boundaries of what art and design can be. We explore AI not only as a tool but as a conceptual and material collaborator—one that enables unexpected, generative encounters across disciplines.
Together, these perspectives illuminate a central idea:
Creative AI, when thoughtfully applied, renders us more vividly and consciously human.
The Network fosters an inclusive and interdisciplinary ecosystem, uniting AI, the arts, and humanities, and design and spatial practices, to shape the future of computational culture and creative expression.
Mission
Unite diverse disciplines: AI, media, philosophy, cultural heritage, art history, psychology and neuroscience, and architecture and design.
Develop responsible and critically informed AI tools and methods for creative, cultural, and spatial applications.
Examine aesthetic, cultural, ethical, and legal implications of AI.
Lead public discourse and influence policy in the age of generative technologies.
Shape the next generation of thinkers and makers through integrated research and teaching.
Thematic Domains of the Network
1. Computational Media
Exploring how AI intersects with creative technologies, artistic and design practices, and media innovation:
AI and Arts and Design Practice
Artistic innovation with AI as tool, subject, or collaborator. Includes generative models, interactive systems, synthetic media, and speculative forms of making.
AI in the Creative Industries
AI used across the creative pipeline—from content generation and production to distribution, exhibition and audience engagement—in film, music, games, publishing, digital platforms, and immersive environments, and across design, fashion, architecture, and spatial practice.
2. Digital Humanities & Cultural Heritage
Investigating how AI reshapes our understanding of history, memory, and cultural knowledge:
AI for Cultural Heritage
Using AI for the interpretation, conservation, restoration, and re-presentation of cultural artefacts, archives, and performances, digitally reconstructing material and immaterial heritage.
Critique of AI through the Arts
Employing artistic and media practices to interrogate AI’s societal meaning, epistemologies, and risks. Includes critical making, speculative design, and media-theoretical approaches.
3. AI and Cultural Policy
Examining how AI transforms the structural, ethical, and legal conditions of the cultural sector:
Labour and Creative Work
Investigating how AI redefines creative labour automation, augmentation, authorship, and emerging roles within artistic and cultural production.
Intellectual Property and Rights
Addressing generative IP challenges, ownership, attribution, fair use, and licensing—within the context of AI-generated or co-created content.
Ethics, Governance and Justice
Examining the ethical, political, and societal implications of AI across cultural and spatial practices, including questions of bias, accountability, environmental impact, automation, public participation, and spatial and climate justice.
Colaborators
UCL Centre for Artificial Intelligence
UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry
UCL Department of Information Studies
UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
UCL Engineering Education
UCL Interaction Centre (UCLIC)
UCL Knowledge Lab (IOE)
UCL Faculty of Laws
UCL Information Studies
UCL Public Anthropology
UCL Art Futures
Slade School of Fine Art
UCL Science and Technology Studies
The Bartlett School of Architecture
The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA)
The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources