What is Creativity in the Age of AI?, 2025
Description:
Whether learned in school, passed down through family and culture, or shaped by the experience of living in a sensitive and sensory body, each of us carries a vast pool of knowledge that is entirely unique to our lived experience. How does this deeply personal, embodied knowledge compare to the kinds of information being generated by artificial intelligence?
What is Creativity in the Age of AI? was a social experiment conducted as a workshop at the 2025 Arts Datathon. In the experiment we collaboratively explored a series of questions about knowledge and creativity using AI tools, our collective knowledge and experiences, and creative materials like beads, clay, and wool roving. Together, we examined the advantages and limitations of human and artificial intelligence.
This workshop was co created with Amy Ben Kiki and Nina Kin. My personal agenda as a massage and bodyworker for over 20 years, was for participants to tap into the irreplaceable value of emotional, sensory, and empathetic knowledge (and how much more interesting and complex we all are than AI).
Process:
Following an introduction and discussion on AI, the room is divided in two where participants on each side of the room explore questions around knowledge and creativity. One side independently uses AI to explore these questions, while the other gathers in groups to draw from their collective knowledge and experiences through discussion and using open ended creative materials. Each side shares their findings using these approaches. The processes are then flipped, so that each side of the room has an opporunity to explore the two approaches. In the end participants share their experiences using the two approaches to learning, creating, and exploring ideas. This experiment was conducted with two different groups on the same day at the 2025 Arts Datahon.
Some Questions:
What is Knowledge? What is Knowing? Where does AI fit within the concept of Knowledge? What Knowledge is uniquely held by you? Is Creativity a process? Is it an output? Is it a state of mind? What is the relationship between creativity and knowledge? What is the relationship between creativity and not knowing?
