Arts Innovation Lab : AI and the creative experience — Winter 2027

Generative Artificial intelligence is reshaping the creative experience. From generating images and composing music to curating exhibitions, recommending cultural content, and mediating how creative works are discovered and shared, AI is changing not only how art is made but how it is encountered, valued, and understood.

These transformations have emerged faster than the ethical, legal, and cultural frameworks needed to govern them. Questions of authorship, ownership, labour, attribution, authenticity, and trust now extend across the entire creative experience, affecting creators, the organizations and technologies that connect creative work with audiences, and the public itself. AI is no longer simply a tool for production; it is becoming an active participant in cultural life.

This Arts Innovation Lab invites students to examine the opportunities and challenges of creative AI through interdisciplinary inquiry grounded in music, visual arts, and broader questions of arts and culture. Rather than approaching AI as either a threat or a solution, students will critically investigate how creative technologies reshape relationships between people, creative works, and society.

The course is organized around Joy Buolamwini's framework of Consent, Control, Credit, and Compensation, expanded through a fifth principle: Consequences. Together, these principles provide a framework for understanding how rights, responsibilities, and accountability can be reimagined in an era when creativity is increasingly shared between humans and intelligent systems.

The Challenge
 

How might we design a future in which AI enhances the creative experience while protecting the rights, agency, and cultural value of the people and communities whose creativity sustains it?

Systems that maximize innovation may weaken creator rights. Strong protections may reduce access or limit experimentation. Increased transparency can improve accountability while introducing new barriers to participation. Decisions that benefit one part of the creative experience may create unintended consequences elsewhere.

Working in interdisciplinary teams, students will explore this challenge from multiple perspectives, considering the interconnected experiences of creators, intermediaries, and audiences. They will investigate how AI influences creativity, cultural participation, trust, and public life, and will develop an evidence-informed intervention, framework, prototype, policy recommendation, or public resource that responds to this complex landscape.

Throughout the Lab, students will evaluate ideas through five guiding questions:

• Who gives consent? 

• Who exercises control? 

• Who receives credit? 

• Who is compensated for? 

• Who experiences (and what are) the consequences? 

Rather than seeking definitive answers, students will learn to navigate competing priorities, recognize unintended consequences, and imagine more equitable, transparent, and human-centered futures for creative experiences.
 

Anticipated Impact

By the end of the lab, you’ll have:

• Contributed to contemporary debates about AI and the creative experience by developing an evidence-informed intervention, framework, prototype, policy recommendation, or public resource that addresses a real-world challenge in arts, culture, and society.

• Developed critical insights into the opportunities and risks of creative AI, exploring how technological innovation intersects with questions of consent, control, credit, compensation, and consequences.

• Strengthened your ability to navigate complex sociotechnical challenges, working collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams to balance competing priorities, evaluate trade-offs, and design solutions under conditions of uncertainty.

• Enhanced your capacity to connect arts- and humanities-based inquiry with technological and policy issues, applying creative, ethical, and systems-oriented thinking to shape more equitable, transparent, and human-centred futures for creativity and culture.

• Gained practical experience in responsible innovation, learning how to assess the broader cultural, social, and ethical implications of emerging technologies and their impact on creators, intermediaries, audiences, and communities.

Who can participate?

For most labs, participants must:

• have completed at least 24 academic units at the time of registration
• be in good academic and financial standing
• commit to participating in the full duration of the lab

Note: If your application is accepted, you will be registered in AHL 3150 (EN) or AHL 3550 (FR) and given access to the course portal on Brightspace, where all core reading modules on positive psychology and studio guidelines will be hosted. 

Note for co-op students: Students participating in a challenge during a work term will be required to pay the applicable course registration fees.

Schedule and commitment
 

• Friday, February 26, 2027: 5:30 p.m.– 9:30 p.m. (uOttawa) – Theory Deep-Dive, Team Formations, and Ideation

• Saturday, February 27, 2027: 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. (uOttawa) – SMART Goals, Prototyping, Materials Prep, and Beta-Testing the Activity

• Sunday, February 28, 2027: 9 a.m.– 5 p.m. (uOttawa) – Live Implementation, Participant Feedback, and Final Impact Presentations

Spots are limited. Lunch is provided on Saturday and Sunday.

Once you are registered, your attendance and active participation are required for the full duration of the lab.