Festival’s Artificial Intelligence mascot merges science and creativity

Tickets are selling fast to a “Dunedin-wide phenomenon over the school holidays”.

The New Zealand International Science Festival (NZISF) is celebrating its 25th year with a new mascot, Kura the Kakapo, an artificial intelligence (AI) generated image that merges the worlds of science and art.

Festival director Jerome Cousins said the festival used AI art because organisers wanted to open up the discussion about AI image generation and art.

“We’ve got a panel discussion on AI and the future of the workforce to specifically continue these discussions.

“We learnt a lot throughout the process and we’re looking forward to sharing that in our AI talk.”

As a curator, Cousins said he wanted to explore how the worlds of science and art interact.

“The inclusion of art in there can help us understand that being a scientist and being an artist or being a creative are not mutually exclusive things — that by having skills in both you can actually enhance both so we’ve got a lot of that in the programme.”

A kakapo was chosen because it was something that was “unequivocally Kiwi” and the name Kura, although commonly used to mean school, also refers to the concept of knowledge, Cousins said.

Some of the events in the festival’s programme had already sold out but Cousins said there were plenty of workshops, tours and exhibits still available for the public whatever their level of science, knowledge or comfort may be.

The festival will comprise over 90 events across more than 50 locations around the city.