UAB and Cruïlla Festival join forces to bring innovative, ethical, and sustainable Artificial Intelligence to artistic performances

UAB and Cruïlla Festival join forces to bring innovative, ethical, and sustainable Artificial Intelligence to artistic performances

  • The ENIA UAB-Cruïlla Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Music and Arts, with a budget of 800,000 euros, will make the University and the Festival living laboratories to research and experiment with new AI solutions for cultural industries under ethical and sustainability parameters, with citizen participation.
  • The team includes researchers from the fields of computer science, arts, and humanities at UAB, the Computer Vision Center (CVC), the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC), and the Cruïlla team, collaborating with Barcelona Music Lab, the Eurecat Foundation, and the Épica La Fura dels Baus Foundation.

The rector of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Javier Lafuente, and the executive director of Barcelona Events Musicals (Cruïlla Festival), Jordi Herreruela, today presented the ENIA UAB-Cruïlla Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Music and Arts, which will support the research and experimentation of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions with a strong commitment to transferring knowledge to the cultural industries ecosystem. The presentation took place as part of the Conference on Music, Cultural Events, and New Technologies during UAB’s Innovation Week, held from October 14 to 18.

The Chair has been granted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation as part of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (ENIA). It is a public-private initiative endowed with 800,000 euros, of which 600,000 euros are provided by the Ministry and 200,000 euros by Barcelona Events Musicals, with an initial duration of 3 years.

Eleven researchers from UAB, CVC, and IIIA-CSIC will participate in the Chair, working alongside the Barcelona Events Musicals team. Other leading institutions in research and innovation in the arts that will collaborate include Barcelona Music Lab, the Eurecat Foundation, and the Épica La Fura dels Baus Foundation.

The scientific coordination and direction of the Chair will be led by Dr. Fernando Vilariño, an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at UAB and associate director of the CVC, where he coordinates the Quantum Machine Learning Group (QML-CVC).

Barcelona Events Musicals has commissioned the Barcelona Music Lab Foundation to manage the ENIA UAB-Cruïlla Chair of Artificial Intelligence in Music and Arts, leveraging their knowledge of the music industry.

Living Laboratories and Events: Ephemeral Cities with Citizen Participation

The ENIA UAB-Cruïlla Chair aims to foster a critical mass of AI researchers in the arts working from three perspectives: one focused on AI as a generative content tool (AI-CREATE), another to develop relevant tools for creators (AI-SUPPORT), and a third that explores AI for the development of the cultural and creative industries ecosystem (AI-EXPERIENCE).

The Chair will invite citizens to participate in the transfer of solutions developed in the context of live events, considered as small ephemeral cities with a specific life cycle and as a set of challenges that AI can help solve. This citizen-centered experimental approach will be carried out in collaboration with municipalities and with the support of the Ethics in Artificial Intelligence Observatory of Catalonia (OEIAC), allowing the study of the role of the university campus and artistic events as living laboratories for acceptable AI proposals in terms of business development, ethical dimensions, and sustainability guidelines.

Pre- and postdoctoral research activities will also be promoted between more technical fields (such as computer science, physics, or mathematics) and those more related to the arts and humanities (music, classical and digital arts, and design), along with applied research based on industry challenges, supporting entrepreneurship and transdisciplinary collaborations between artists and scientists.

Collaborating institutions will play a significant role in the Chair. Barcelona Music Lab will contribute to analyzing and understanding the future of music in the digital society. The Eurecat Foundation, founder and host of the South-West Colocation Center (CLC) of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Culture & Creativity, will be a key node to connect academia and industry. The Épica La Fura dels Baus Foundation, as a research center in advanced arts, will help promote collaboration among the humanities, science, technology, and society through coordinating transdisciplinary workshops and live events.

After the official presentation, the Chair’s director, Dr. Fernando Vilariño, explained a dozen examples of representative lines of work that will receive support from the Chair. These examples include, among others: generative artificial intelligence models for artistic images, digital twins for training autonomous vehicles, tools to assist in interpreting scores, and real-time audience interaction systems.