Storytellers + Machines 2026: The End Of AI

July 8th-9th

Location: School of Digital Arts

Event Type: In-person

Price: FREE

All conference places are fully funded by Manchester Metropolitan University this year, acknowledging the cost of living crisis and disruption to UK higher education sector.

Storytellers + Machines is a conference which will include two days of keynotes and panel discussion on 8-9 July and an AI performance event on evening of 8th July featuring dance, music and other AI related works. A light menu of food and refreshments are provided throughout the two main days.

This year’s theme is ‘The End Of AI’ The cultural and creative disruption of the first two years of generative AI technology was captured by Storytellers + Machines 2024 performers, artists and academics. Now as an artistic and academic community we speculate on, imagine, or perhaps plot the end of A.I. and wonder what might come after.

KEYNOTE 1: PINAR YOLDAS

Award-winning artist and professor
University of California San Diego

Pinar Yoldas is a research-based artist and academic whose work focuses on the Anthropocene, futurism, and feminist technoscience.Yoldas highlights the term “speculative biology” in comparison to experimental architecture of the 1990s, as design of tissues, organs, organisms, biological systems, ecotypes and ecosystems in order to catalyse creative critical thinking. She brings with her the mesmerising Kitty A.I. (2016), which narrates its future role as governor of the world. She is a Guggenheim fellow and a MacDowell Colony fellow.

KEYNOTE 2: MAY ABDALLA

Twice Emmy-nominated director and artist
Co-founder and director of award-winning Anagram

Twice Emmy-nominated director and artist May Abdalla creates groundbreaking work by merging physical experience, technology, and storytelling. Her projects deliver poetic insight into contemporary issues, leveraging documentary, game-design, and speculative fiction. In 2013, she co-founded the award-winning UK studio Anagram to pioneer user interactivity in non-fiction storytelling. Anagram’s portfolio spans a vast range of forms, from Door Into The Dark—a blindfolded experience about what it means to be lost—to Messages to A Post Human Earth, a two person outdoor augmented reality journey about plant intelligence. The ongoing series Playing With Reality (co-directed with Barry Gene Murphy, featuring Tilda Swinton as Echo) utilizes immersive tech to explore first-person experiences of mental health conditions. This acclaimed work has earned two Venice Lions—the Grand Jury Award for Best VR and the Immersive Achievement Award in 2024—and is now a training tool for healthcare professionals across the NHS and international institutions. Their current project, Amorphous, playfully explores the edges of body perception and identity, employing AI, VR, and good old fashioned physical objects.

FULL SCHEDULE

WEDNESDAY 8 JULY

*Session timings still subject to change.

9:00
Reception: tea, coffee and networking
Served on Level 4 of the Lowry Building (Lobby and Terrace).

9:30
Welcome and introductions.
The Storytellers + Machines team welcome you to the Manchester Metropolitan University campus and run through the events of the day.

10:00
Keynote: Pinar Yoldas, award-winning US-Turkish artist and researcher

11:30
Panel 1: Zeitgeist

13:00
A light lunch with hot and cold drinks will be served.

14:00
Panel 2: Ecological Burnout.

15:30–16:30
Artists and work discussions.
A chance to see the artworks, installations and films shared by speakers and discuss the themes, ideas and aesthetics driving the work.

16:30–18:00
Book reading and Q&A: Listening In.
Prof. Toby Heys (SODA & AUDINT), David Jackson (SODA) and Marsha Courneya (Birkbeck, University of London) read from their recently published book Listening In: From Acoustic Surveillance to Artificial Intelligence. Chaired by Paul Rekret (University of Westminster).

Break

19:30–22:00
Evening performances at The Deaf Institute.

THURSDAY 9 JULY

8:30
Reception: tea, coffee and networking.
Served on Level 4 of the Lowry Building (Lobby and Terrace).

9:15
Welcome back and introduction to Day 2.
Introduction to Day 2 activities; delegate AI findings so far.

9:45
Panel 3: Artistic Limits.

11:15
Panel 4: Community Rejection.

12:45
A light lunch with hot and cold drinks will be served.

13:30
Panel 5: Possible Futures (with n-Space, Somerset House).

15:00
Keynote: May Abdalla, BAFTA-award-winning director and co-founder of ANAGRAM.

16:30–16:50
Closing remarks, special mentions and thanks..