Collaboration with Otis Mensah, former Poet Laurate of Sheffield and ENON Films

We collaborated with Otis Mensah, musician/writer and the first Poet Laureate of Sheffield, and ENON Films to produce a short storytelling performance in response to early findings of our first case study, which explores how data scientists’ beliefs, values and feelings interact to shape how they engage with AI techniques to inform drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry.

This collaboration was funded by and presented at the Festival of the Mind 2022, a biennial celebration of the University of Sheffield’s research showcasing collaborative projects produced by academics from the University and artistic talent from Sheffield’s creative industries.

Otis describes this piece as a poetic and sonic reflection on the topic of AI & machine learning in the pharmaceutical industry. Here he explores themes of the body, trust & consent in the medical field, and ethics around data mining.

The process behind the creation of Data/Opium

In September 2022, we hosted a panel in which we discussed the process behind creating Data/Opium chaired by one of our postdoctoral researchers Monika Fratczak. Here is a brief recap:

Talking about the motivation for this collaboration, Itzelle Medina said: “We wanted to get a response from the artists to the research findings, and we were open to embarking on this journey that was something new for us”

She was interested to see how the artists would be inspired by the data, what they might notice linked to their backgrounds and practice.

Otis talked about keeping his artist freedom intact and using the research as a ‘portal for my interests, thoughts and feelings”. He described this dichotomy as ‘the beauty and the fear’. He also shared how the sound of words can open up a landscape and being influenced by the history of technology in Detroit to inform the soundscape. Hugh was interested in taking the poem as a script and Otis’ incredible soundscape to shape the film.

Monika wraps the panel up by finding out more about future projects – Otis is working on a book, Hugh is working on a feature film with Screen Yorkshire, and Itzelle and Monika are continuing the research focused on ML in higher education and arts practice, respectively.