Loughborough University
Loughborough University
12/05/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 12/05/2025 06:19
Loughborough University is exploring ideas for a ‘Museum of AI Cultures’ to learn more about how people experience artificial intelligence
Loughborough University is exploring ideas for a 'Museum of AI Cultures' to learn more about how people experience artificial intelligence
5 December 2025A new project is inviting people to think differently about artificial intelligence - not as a gadget, a line of code, a promise or a threat, but as part of our shared culture.
The initiative, called Modelling a Museum of AI Cultures, explores how shared cultural spaces, such as museums, can show how AI has developed, how it is understood, and how it impacts on the environment, work, and daily life.
Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the £242,200 two-year project runs from March 2025 to December 2026.
It will feature live and virtual events, publications, and interactive resources designed to help publics, museum professionals, and policy makers reflect on how AI shapes, and is shaped by, human experience.
Dr Kathryn Brown, Reader in Art Histories, Markets and Digital Heritage at Loughborough University, who is leading the work, said: "The term 'AI' covers such an array of computational systems and models that it can generate confusion.
"Our project tries to dispel myths about AI and to explore how cultural spaces can offer an important forum for people to articulate their ideas and concerns about technologies that are quickly reshaping our societies".
The project also includes a number of workshops and seminars which discuss the uses of AI in everyday life.
On December 5, Dr Brown hosted an event that explores AI's links to healthcare, the diagnosis of disease, and the creation of solidaristic practices in healthcare settings.
The project will bring together researchers from the arts, humanities and computing to explore questions such as who controls the future of AI, what values are built into it, and how it is represented in the media, popular culture, and museums.
Partners include the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, The Francis Crick Institute, London and The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, in La Jolla, California.
Dr Brown said: "In the case of the Ashmolean, we're collaborating to interface with the museum's collection and to explore how technology can build out key themes from its holdings".
The project will also examine how AI is already being used within cultural institutions - from interactive exhibitions to virtual reality reconstructions of historical artefacts - and what that means for access, ethics, and inclusion.
Dr Brown said she also hopes the project will create resources for researchers, teachers, students, museum professionals and anyone curious about the social aspects of advanced technology.
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Notes for editors
Press release reference number: 25/177
Loughborough is one of the country's leading universities, with an international reputation for research that matters, excellence in teaching, strong links with industry, and unrivalled achievement in sport and its underpinning academic disciplines.
It has been awarded five stars in the independent QS Stars university rating scheme and named the best university in the world for sports-related subjects in the 2025 QS World University Rankings - the ninth year running.
Loughborough has been ranked seventh in the Complete University Guide 2026 - out of 130 institutions.
This milestone marks a decade in the top ten for Loughborough - a feat shared only by the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, St Andrews, Durham and Imperial.
Loughborough was also named University of the Year for Sport in the Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2025 - the fourth time it has been awarded the prestigious title.
In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 over 90% of its research was rated as 'world-leading' or 'internationally-excellent'. In recognition of its contribution to the sector, Loughborough has been awarded seven Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Higher and Further Education.
The Loughborough University London campus is based on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and offers postgraduate and executive-level education, as well as research and enterprise opportunities. It is home to influential thought leaders, pioneering researchers and creative innovators who provide students with the highest quality of teaching and the very latest in modern thinking.
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