Dr Shira Wachsmann
- Associate Lecturer
- Digital Direction MA
Shira is a widely exhibited multimedia artist/researcher, incorporating themes of war-trauma, human-machine-interspecies co-evolution and sustainability via the pathbreaking research of symbiotic intelligence and multi-threaded poetics.
Dr Shira Wachsmann is an artist, researcher, and Associate Lecturer in Digital Direction at the School of Communication. Her work often addresses contemporary issues through poetic, multi-threaded, and non-linear narratives. Her practice-led PhD, titled: Landscape, War Trauma, Explosion: Re-membering the Moment Before, examined how trauma can sink into the common sense of people, undetected; how it can circulate and (re)shapes collective consciousness and with it, the very landscape of one’s life.
Wachsmann co-founded Orbital Bloom, a data-driven artwork featured at King Charles III’s coronation. Her work is internationally exhibited, contributing to both contemporary art and academic discourse.
Key details
School, Centre or Area
Gallery
More information
Research interests
Symbiotic Intelligence
Her ongoing research, Symbiotic Intelligence, explores the intersection of AI, mycelium, more-than-human and interspecies co-creation and co-evolution. It investigates intelligence as a collective assemblage, an emergent property arising from interconnected systems of humans, more-than-human entities, and machines. The project generates immersive experiences that challenge traditional notions of cognition while emphasising situated ecologies and post-anthropocentric perspectives on AI.
Symbiotic Intelligence is a collaborative practice founded by Dr. Shira Wachsmann and Dr. John Wild, blending fine art with critical research to challenge dominant narratives in Artificial Intelligence (AI). For over three years, they have worked together at the AI Design Lab, a partnership between the Royal College of Art and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Their work critically explores the cultural, social, ecological and ethical dimensions of AI development.
AI Narrative Ecologies : Nature-led Digital Storytelling for Sustainable Energy Communities
In the urgent context of climate change, Wachsmann’s research investigates how nature-led AI digital storytelling can be integrated into innovative methods of communicating data. This research aims to engage people with sustainability information in positive, hopeful, and playful ways. It leverages art, technology, and nature-inspired graphics to create digital tools that emotionally engage individuals and inspire action. This approach not only enhances the accessibility and transparency of sustainability data but also fosters grassroots initiatives, transforming sustainability into a community effort.
Research funding
2023: Innovate UK - Creative Catalyst: Orbital Bloom
2022: Terra Carta design lab: Orbital Bloom
2019: ELES- Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk
2017: Ursula-Wandres-Stiftung
2017: Gwärtler Stiftung, Basel
2014: Senatskanzlei - Kullturelle Angelegenheiten, Künstlerinnenförderung - Film/Video
Publications, exhibitions, other outcomes
Publications
2025/6: Symbiotic Intelligence, in AI Halftime: Multispecies Ecologies of Emerging Cognitions (Edition Angewandte series). De Gruyter, forthcoming 2026.
2025: Drawing the Line and Zerstört in the Tohu Magazine, edited by Michal B. Ron. [https://tohumagazine.com/article/drawing-line]
2023: TankWoman in the international journal radical⇌matter: Art. Philosophy. Wild Science. (Angewandte, University of the Applied Arts, Vienna) [https://journal.radicalmatter.art/#] Peer Reviewed.
2022: The moment before - war trauma, embodiment, and the re-membering of matter (and what matters) in Lea Maria Spahn (ed.), Walking as Embodied Worldmaking: Bodies, Borders, Knowledgescapes. Brno: VUT IUM. Forthcoming re-publication [release date 2025]. Peer Reviewed. ISBN 9789083499338 .
2022: Fire Surface, Pool Reader Nr. 6, WORLD, Tropez, Berlin:
Solo Exhibitions:
2024: TankWoman screening in HALLE 13, Vienna
2023: The moment before the explosion / SPEAKING TO ANCESTORS, Transmediale Berlin 2019
Do You Remember? kunstverein Göttingen
2018: Particles of Invasion, Kirsan Art Foundation and OFCA International Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2017: Once, a place called home, Bar Kosmetiksalon Babette, Berlin
2016: Arteealtro Gallery, Rome
2016: Tribe Fire, cubus-m Gallery Berlin
2015: Without Borders- Video in Arsenal Berlin
Group Exhibitions
2025: Symbiotic Intelligence, Peckham Digital, Copland Gallery London (October).
2025: Symbiogenesis, Sukkot Mittweida, Mittweida Germany (October).
2025: Weather Spores: Immersive point cloud installation/ AR/digital performance at ReWilding AI-The Radical Mattering of Narrative Ecologies via Immersive and Distributed Intelligence, SNAP Visual Lab (Research and Commercial Industry Lab) RCA London
2024: DAZUGEHÖREN, Kunsthaus Dresden, Dresden.
2024: Ana-Cartography, Floating Projects, Hong Kong
2024: radical⇌matter, When Materialism is No Longer Enough, Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab, Vienna
2023 Orbital Bloom in Dubai Design Week, Dubai.
2023: Ana-Cartography, Cromwell Place, London
2023: A pAIn in the... [None of the Above], Season, s.z.n. London
2023: Formen der politischen, FHXB Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Museum, Berlin
2023: None of the Above: Troubling the Story, Iklectik, London
2023: Gesticulator, ASC gallery, London
2022: Wirwir video screening, Berlin
2022: WORLD in Tropez, Berlin
2022: Terra incognita, Düsseldorf
2022: Terra Carta in Dyson gallery London
2022: Unruly encounters in Southwark Park Galleries, London
2021: Terrestrial Assemblage, Floating university, Berlin
2021: Die Freiheit Frei zu sein, Kunsthalle Bahnitz
2021: 30. Tage der jüdischen Kulturausstellung in den Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
2020: Ausstellung der Kunst am Bau Wettbewerb- Jüdische Museum Berlin
2019: CONNECTED, Honold fine art at Biasa cube, Bali, Indonesia
2018: Sehnsucht nach Landschaft, Kunsthalle Bahnitz
2018: EXTREMITY II OPEN WOUNDS Display Berlin
2018: Last Dance, Autocenter, Kindel, Berlin
2018: Offene Räume – Identitäten im Werden in Zeiten der Krise, Cuba
2017: Extremities, Display Berlin
2017: Whenever the Heart Skips a Beat, Berlin
2016: Schatten des Krieges, Kunsthalle Bahnitz
2016: Art Vending Machine, Jewish Museum Berlin
2015: My Personal Favourites, Berlin
2015: Vot ken you mach, MWW Muzeum Wspolczesne in Wroclaw, Poland
2014: Unbordered | Public Performance, Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin
2013 - 2014: Vot ken you mach, kunsthaus Dresden
2013: Archaeologies of the Future, Gallery Campagne Première Berlin