This project was part of a national inquiry (UKRI-funded, "Public Voices in AI") into how artificial intelligence (AI) might serve - or fail to serve - the public good. My role centred on designing and delivering a place-based, community-led research process that invited publics not typically included in technological discourse into imaginative, critical conversation.
I developed a participatory, arts-informed methodology rooted in post-qualitative practice and deliberative inquiry, working closely with my co-facilitator and the Ada team to create conditions of trust, curiosity and reflection. This included the full design and delivery of a participant recruitment strategy, alongside facilitation of multiple day-long research workshops, held in Southampton. Additionally, my involvement included development of a self-inquiry guide for participants, and co-facilitation of online workshops hosted collaboratively between the Ada Lovelace Institute and We and AI.
Methods included speculative and sensory provocations: drawing exercises, role play, and guided meditations, all designed to support participants in exploring their affective, ethical and embodied responses to concepts of AI, public good, and collective life. Rather than seeking consensus or fixed definitions, the work foregrounded multiplicity, friction and imagination as generative tools - enabling participants to surface the tensions and contradictions within prevailing narratives of technological progress and public interest.
Alongside the formal reporting of findings, I produced a creative zine featuring participant contributions, reflections, and visual provocations - which was distributed via October Books in Southampton. This publication acted as both an archive and a tool for local dissemination and dialogue, extending the inquiry beyond institutional boundaries and back into community context.
This work was significant not only in what it surfaced, but how it did so - resisting extractive models of research and instead cultivating a situated, affective and care-full encounter with one of the most pressing issues of our time.
