FTS x CONNECT: Blowing off some STEAM

STEM has become a fairly well-known acronym for the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths, but some would argue that it’s missing a crucial component: A for arts.

Before she became the provost of Trinity College Dublin, Prof Linda Doyle pioneered the inclusion of arts and design in the research process as founding director of the CONNECT technology research centre.

To this day, the Orthogonal Methods Group (OMG) continues as a research platform within CONNECT that works in creative tension with technology and supports the essential role that creative minds must play in shaping our technological future.

In this episode, two OMG members, artist Dennis McNulty and writer Jessica Foley, join us to for a discussion on arts and technology, from cross-stitching research proposals to diagramming the quantum internet.

Dennis and Jessica also shared their discomfort with STEAM and got into the friction emerging between artists (and researchers) and generative AI, as well as the precarity facing PhD researchers in Ireland.

This episode part of our mini series in partnership with CONNECT, where we’ll be speaking to their researchers about lots more tech at the intersection of science and society.

Check out the links below for some further reading on this topic, or find out more about CONNECT at ConnectCentre.ie and keep up with their research by subscribing to their newsletter. 📧

Thom Yorke and Julianne Moore join thousands of creatives in AI warning

Statement comes as tech firms try to use creative professionals’ work to train AI models

The GuardianDan Milmo

One Year After the Actors’ Strike, AI Remains a Persistent Threat

Some SAG-AFTRA members tell Rolling Stone they have been pressured to sign contracts consenting to digital replicas of their likenesses.

Rolling StoneKalia Richardson

PhD Researchers Should Be Recognised as Staff

The University TimesPostgraduate Workers’ OrganisationContributing Writer