Join us in person for a one-night-only immersive performance lecture
Speakers
- Dr Annja Neumann
- Henrietta Hale
- Alexander Mentzel
Agenda
6.30pm - Performance lecture starts
8.00pm - Performance lecture ends with networking & refreshments for those attending at BCS London
9.00pm - Event close
Synopsis
Experience AI like never before. This is not a typical talk. It’s a documentary theatre performance, a provocative conversation, and a social experiment rolled into one — led by a seasoned expert who combines art, research, and consulting to explore the very real consequences of working with AI.
- In a world rushing to embrace automation and generative intelligence, we ask:
- What exactly are we giving up in exchange for AI-powered progress?
- What invisible roles do we step into when we work alongside AI?
- Can we shape ethical, inclusive futures — or are we already too entangled?
Through Faust Shop, an award-winning interactive method combining mixed-reality theatre, roundtable debate, and system design, you’ll step inside the co-evolution of human and machine — as observer, participant, or both.
Expect to be challenged.
Expect to reflect.
This event must be experienced to be understood.
Spaces are limited — secure your ticket today.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Dr Annja Neumann
Dr Annja Neumann is a Principal Consultant/ Artist-Researcher working in AI transformation, future of work and AI ethics at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, a multidisciplinary and applied Social Science Research Institute in London, where the socio-technical systems approach and action research was invented in the 1950s. She also works as an Affiliated Lecturer in Digital Humanities at the University of Cambridge and Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge. Drawing on 17+ years’ experience in practice research on public sector organisations, the private sector and HE, she specialises in the societal and organisational impact of digital/AI transformation, the re-thinking and staging of socio-technical systems in relation to AI and embodied approaches to AI ethics (experiential learning).
Annja’s practice research, change consulting and evaluation work (across sectors in the UK, EU and Asia) focus on relational and performative approaches to generative AI; proposing that successful adoption and scaling of Human-AI work systems require the rehearsal of the roles that actors take up in organisations. She combines her practice as digital theatre-maker with training as a digital humanist (AI ethics; AI governance; staging of Human-AI work systems) and cultural anthropologist (working with unconscious responses to new technologies, e.g. automation anxiety and moral stress).
As the founder and lead of the Creative Digital Futures Lab her work (in tech, health, GLAM sectors) engages socio-ecological perspectives on AI ecosystems, e.g. addressing labour and skills shortages across the EU through AI tools (European Observatory for active labour market policies, EU Horizon), creative leadership programmes, and staging the Faustian pacts we make with digital technologies with the Futures Lab ensemble.
Henrietta Hale
Heni Hale is a movement and performance artist working across interdisciplinary fields including social sciences, history and neuroscience. Her recent contribution as a commissioned artist to Neurolive, a 5 year neuroscience and dance performance project is one example of many collaborative projects at the intersections of research disciplines that she has developed through her collective company Dog Kennel Hill Project. Neurolive interrogates Liveness using various technologies applied to a performance situation, as well as through the medium of theatre and performance itself with audiences serving as participants in a research study. Other such projects such as Tug have explored Uk industrialisation through performances on UK’s abandoned and re-imagined canals and historical waterways. People Working Project took a humanist, and ethnographic approach to examining audiences’ reflexive perception of their working day and sense of purpose.
Alexander Mentzel
Alex Mentzel is a PhD researcher in German Studies and Digital Humanities as a Gates Scholar at the University of Cambridge, studying the intersection of generative AI, digital cultures, and public perception. His work examines how AI technologies shape — and are shaped by — cultural narratives, visual language, and spatial principles and architectures. Prior to Cambridge, Alex co-founded Averto, a conflict-mapping platform that integrated user-generated data to enhance safety in high-risk regions, securing partnerships with NGOs and government agencies. Alongside his academic work, Alex has extensive experience in the creative industries, including theatre, media production, and digital performance. This includes the ongoing Faust Shop performance programme with Dr Annja Neumann, which blends generative AI and immersive theatre to challenge AI stereotypes and foster critical engagement. His research and practice bridge technology and society, focusing on how we build (and break) trust in AI through images, stories, and participatory design.
TICKET COSTS:
(Prices stated are inclusive of VAT plus fees)
BCS members: £4.00 + fees
Non-members: £10.00 + fees
No refunds are given on this event.
Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.
BCS is a membership organisation. If you enjoy this event, please consider joining BCS. You’ll be very welcome. You’ll receive access to many exclusive career development tools, an introduction to a thriving professional community and also help us Make IT Good For Society. Join BCS today
Please note: if you have any accessibility needs, please let us know via groups@bcs.uk and we’ll work with you to make suitable arrangements.
If you are attending in person, please familiarise yourself with the Visitor Instructions for the BCS London Office.
For overseas delegates who wish to attend the event, please note that BCS does not issue invitation letters.
This event is brought to you by: London Central
Lead image credits: © Annja Neumann, Alex Mentzel, Kirk Woolford, Faust Shop: discover your digital double, mixed-reality performance, premiered in Cambridge, 2022; Ruijia Zhang and Eva Aymamí Reñé as AI dancers, funded by Cambridge Digital Humanities as part of a Newton Trust Fellowship, University of Cambridge, and also supported by the Cambridge School of Creative Industries, Anglia Ruskin University. Video/ screen shot edits by Modern Activity, 2024.
