Past Activities

Past research activities by CAIDE Art, AI and Digital Ethics

CAIDE AAIDE Seed Funding

Our seed fund was a yearly initiative designed to foster networking and critical thinking across Art, AI and Digital Ethics at University of Melbourne and beyond. It is for academics (including graduate researchers), industry professionals and practicing artists of all disciplines. We fund projects that specifically explore what art practice brings to consideration of digital ethics.

The seed fund was launched in 2021 with a blog post and a workshop attended by 25 artists, curators, industry professionals and academics from multiple disciplines.The workshop provided an opportunity for participants to discuss Art, AI and Digital Ethics prior to forming research teams who could apply for the fund.

We funded two projects in 2021:

Scrape Elegy - a pink toilet in an art gallery

Scrape Elegy.


A lament for what we give over to the bots. A mourning poem for the late capitalist hell that makes even the worst of us valuable. A cringe tour of the digital graveyard we make day by day. A sweet little drown in the doom scroll. A comedic monologue starring you and only you. All you need to hand over is your handle. All you will leave with is the OMG echo.

Past Events

  • February 2022 ‘Small Data is Beautiful: Analytics, Art and Narrative’This interdisciplinary symposium sought to nurture and advance our understanding of small data that involves human-scale analyses, thinking about aesthetics, and exploring how narratives emerge from data patterns and their anomalies. Key questions guiding the event are: how do interactions with small data shape and inspire transformations of knowledge in the twenty-first century? Who collects, owns and curates small data? And when and where does small data hold power? What kind of actions, or play, are possible with small data? Which stories can be told with small data?
  • April 2022 ANAT SPECTRA: Art, AI and Digital Ethics Panel 
    This panel reported on findings from our launch event, which brought together artists, curators and academics. ANAT SPECTRA is Australia’s premiere event exploring experimental, interdisciplinary art-science practices.
  • March 2022 Creating New Codes: How can art explore digital ethics? NGV Melbourne Design Week.
    This event documented work in progress from the winners of our 2021 Seed fund project Interrogating the Ethics of Biometric Capture in Immersive Musical Performance. Melbourne Design Week (MDW) is an annual 11-day program of talks, tours, exhibitions and workshops that celebrate and critically interrogate design through its varied disciplines.