Middle Tennessee State University is hosting a free virtual summit that explores the future of art in an era of rapid technological change and artificial intelligence.
“AI and the Future of Art Summit 2025: Creativity Reimagined” will be held via Zoom on Nov. 18-19 and will include various guest speakers who will explore how artificial intelligence is transforming artistic practice and redefining creative processes. They’ll also explore what it means to be human and creative in an increasingly algorithmic world, as well as the cultural, ethical, and philosophical questions raised by machine-assisted creation.
The two-day online event, led by award-winning art historian Sara A. Abdoh, will bring together artists, art historians, and cultural innovators to answer questions such as, “How is AI transforming creativity?” and “What new futures for art are emerging?”
“AI does not define the future of art,” Abdoh said. “Artists do. Technology may spark new possibilities, but human imagination will decide what creativity becomes.”
Participants can register for the free virtual summit at https://www.mtsu.edu/artsummit/.
Presenters on Tuesday, Nov. 18
MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee and university Provost Mark Byrnes will make opening remarks at 9:45 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, along with Abdoh.
The theme for the first day of the summit is “Rewriting Creative Boundaries,” and guest speakers will explore how AI and technology are reshaping artistic expressions and mediums.
The theme for the first day of the summit is “Rewriting Creative Boundaries,” and guest speakers will explore how AI and technology are reshaping artistic expressions and mediums.
“Like futurist artists imagining changes from the Industrial Revolution, today we witness art and technology evolving together at the dawn of the AI revolution,” said new media artist Denis Semenov, a first-day presenter known professionally as “Saint Denis.”
First day presenters include:
Filippo Nassetti (10:10-10:40 a.m.) is a designer and multimedia artist whose practice explores the visual languages and creative potentials that emerge from challenging conventional oppositions such as natural and artificial, digital and material, human and non-human.
Filippo is the director of Filippo Nassetti Studio and a lecturer at University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture. His work has been exhibited and published internationally.
• Denis Semenov (11-11:30 a.m.) creates AI-driven audiovisual performances and immersive installations that merge creativity with cutting-edge technology. His works explore how algorithms push the boundaries of imagination, spanning painting to music.
Recognized with awards including an Emmy nomination, a Webby People’s Voice Award and Red Dot Best of the Best, his projects have been presented at South by Southwest, Cannes Film Festival and New Images Festival. Semenov has been a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences since 2023.
Snow Yunxue Fu (11:50 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.) is a New York-based new media artist, curator and assistant arts professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Institute of Emerging Media.
She works with imaging technologies, such as 3D simulation, augmented reality, extended reality, metaverse, virtual production and AI, and creates computer-rendered images, moving images, interactive projects and installations, while merging sociological, anthropological, philosophical and interdisciplinary explorations into the universal aesthetic and definitive nature of the techno sublime.
Davide Scalmani (12:40-1:10 p.m.) is recognized for his contribution to international cultural relations and intellectual exchange. As a senior executive in the Cultural Department of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has spearheaded initiatives in cultural cooperation, forging connections across continents and communities.
His leadership roles have included directing the Italian Cultural Institutes in Cairo, Belgrade and Mexico City, as well as serving as Cultural Attaché in Madrid and Vilnius. In addition to his diplomatic engagements, Scalmani has shared his expertise as a lecturer and visiting professor at leading universities in Rome, Madrid, Seoul and Boston.
Presenters for Wednesday, Nov. 19
On day two, the summit’s theme will focus on “Innovation and Human Touch.” Speakers will discuss cultural shifts and future directions of art and AI collaboration.
“AI isn’t the artist. It’s an instrument and a dialogue partner,” said guest speaker Laura Rautjoki. “Authorship and meaning come from the artist’s intention, curation, and context.”
Second day presenters include:
• Marjan Moghaddam (10:10-10:40 a.m.) is a renowned, pioneering, influential and widely exhibited digital artist known for her unique style of post-digital and glitch figuration, 3D animation and critical discourse.
With over four decades of computer and digital art exhibitions, museum shows and a winner of numerous awards from the ASCII Best Computer Art (2000) to the first NFT Digital Art prize in 2023. She is also a tenured, full Professor of Digital Art & XR at the Brooklyn Campus of LIU.
Karen Essex (11-11:30 a.m.) is a national and international bestselling author whose novels spotlight history’s fascinating women. Her books include two acclaimed biographical novels, “Kleopatra and Pharaoh,” that explore the political acumen of the Egyptian queen, and “Leonardo’s Swans,” the story of Leonardo da Vinci’s powerful female muses. Her books are published in 29 languages.
Essex is also a prolific screenwriter, having written for various studios, streamers and networks. A graduate of Tulane University, she attended graduate school at Vanderbilt University and received a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Goddard College.
Edward Shanken (11:50 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.) writes and teaches about the entwinement of art, science, and technology with a focus on interdisciplinary practices involving new media. A Professor of the Arts at the University of California, Santa Cruz, he is best known for his books and essays about art and technology, including Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon), Systems (MIT), and Telematic Embrace (University of California).
Laura Rautjoki (12:40-1:10 p.m.) is a Finnish visual artist and photographer whose thesis examined AI and authorship in photographic art.
Her AI-based work has been exhibited at the Forssa Museum, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, the Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt and Tampere Architecture and Design Week. Her work is in Colorado Photographic Arts Center’s permanent collection, and she was named to Leonardo.ai’s “Top 50 Women AI Artists.”
Full summit schedule and speaker biographies are online at mtsu.edu/artsummit/schedule/.