Afaina de Jong: Imagining ways of engaging with AI – Talk

About the event

Join an exploratory conversation on how artists and designers can engage critically and creatively with AI.

• Date: October 8, 2026
• Time: 17:30
• Doors open: 17:00
• Language: English
• Location: 10th floor
• Seating available

NOTE: Please remember to allow time to reach the 10th floor and to store bags, umbrellas, and liquids in the lockable wardrobe in the lobby area. The event is free and the capacity is limited, so please arrive early to secure your spot.

What does it mean to approach AI not simply as a tool, but as a material that artists, designers and communities can question, shape and work with?

In this explorative conversation architect, Afaina de Jong will share ways of thinking and ways of engaging with large language models (LLM), while reflecting on questions of ownership, consent, values, knowledge and power.

De Jong will also share the work of her design initiative “The Embodied Restoration Lab” and its pilot model; a collective reasoning LLM ecosystem. The ecosystem is grounded in the archives of a diasporic community of architects, designers, artists and data scientists in a collective effort to exchange and transfer collective knowledge into a distributed systems ecology of generative algorithmic intelligence. De jong will share critical insights on the process, potential for artists and designers and the pilot model itself.