Milton Keynes City of Codes and Lights Festival 2024 Celebrates Innovation and Cultural Collaboration

Milton Keynes, UK: 7th October 2024 – The Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture (MKIAC) charity has wrapped up another successful edition of its iconic City of Codes and Light Festival. From 2nd to 5th October, the festival once again transformed Milton Keynes into a hub of creativity, innovation, and cultural exchange, attracting thousands of attendees from across the UK.

This year’s festival explored the intersections of artificial intelligence, art, science, and technology, offering a diverse range of immersive learning activities, interactive workshops, and inspiring symposiums. In a celebration of modern innovation and ancient wisdom, the festival brought together artists, scientists, educators, and performers, fostering collaboration across multiple disciplines.

 Festival Highlights:

The event kicked off at Bletchley Park with a thought-provoking symposium on Mathematics, AI, and Creative Patterns, where speakers like Dr Brigitte Stenhouse and Professor Kamal Bechkoum discussed the deep connections between geometric patterns in Islamic art and modern AI techniques. Their conversation sparked a lively exchange on how AI is shaping both artistic expression and technological innovation. 

Thursday's AI for Good symposium at the South Central Institute of Technology showcased how AI can be harnessed to address global challenges from healthcare to sustainability. This was followed by a captivating concert by Group Masal, who infused traditional Turkish melodies with contemporary flair at Milton Keynes Central Library.

Over 18,000 people came together for the grand finale on Saturday which saw Nature’s Algorithm, an extraordinary projection created by Inspiral Design, with artwork created by Shenley Brook End School, SCIoT-Students and Bletchley Park and supported by multimedia creative studio Limbic Cinema, light up the Central Library. This was followed by the parade of lights led by the Digital Drummers, the Jabberwock and Eva the Polar Bear giant mechanical puppets along with lots of handmade lanterns. The evening culminated in a breathtaking Theatre in the Sky drone display by Celestial at Campbell Park, accompanied by the electric sounds of Jimi Needles & the Club Classics Orchestra. The fusion of light, music, and technology highlighted the festival's core themes of innovation and community, leaving audiences in awe.

Anouar Kassim MBE, CEO, Artistic Director, and Founder of MKIAC, shared: “The City of Codes and Light Festival isn’t just about celebrating technology and creativity—it’s about bringing communities together. By exploring the role of AI and cultural diversity, we aim to inspire future generations to think creatively and collaboratively about the challenges and opportunities of our time. I especially want to thank all the volunteers involved and all of the community groups who participated who made the festival such a huge success.” 

The festival also featured The Hive, an interactive art installation created by local students and artists using AI to explore the complex beauty of bees and their ability to construct intricate, geometric structures. This installation will remain on display at the Central Library for the next month.

The City of Codes and Light Festival finale on Saturday night once again cemented its place as a key event in Milton Keynes’ cultural calendar, highlighting the city as a centre for innovation, AI, and cultural exchange.

The next event to mark the anniversary of the world’s first AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park is the Milton Keynes AI Festival (29 October - 1 November 2024). The Milton Keynes AI Festival will bring together business leaders and AI experts from the city and beyond for events, conferences and hackathons hosted by major city organisations at the forefront of technological innovation.

For more information and highlights from this year’s City of Codes and Light Festival, visit MKIAC.org.

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Editors notes

About the Artists - Dr Shama Rahman

Dr Shama Rahman is a scientist, artist, creative technologist and futurist. She holds a PhD in the neuroscience and complex systems of Creative Cognition and Innovation, and her work has encompassed the use of wearable technology to enhance storytelling. She is the co-author of ‘Creativity in the Twenty First Century: Multidisciplinary Contributions to the Science of Creative Thinking' and 'NeuroDesign Live’ by Springer. She is a composer, multi-instrumentalist and a multi-genre multi-cultural singer. She has received an Emerging Excellence Award (Help Musicians), been commissioned by composer's residency 'Take V' (Serious), and been a Sky Arts Scholarship and Artangel finalist. She has toured internationally and was the first Sitarist Explorer to perform in Antarctica on the first ever Antarctic Biennale. As an actor, she was the lead of Southeast Asia's first supernatural detective 24-part drama thriller. Her multi-disciplinary practice has led her to be the Artistic Director of the Art/Science creative production agency Jugular Productions, producing interdisciplinary shows, salons, installations, immersive experiences and games. Bringing together this extensive knowledge and work she founded NeuroCreate - using Al and Neuroscience in a symbiotic digital design to enhance human creativity, performance and wellbeing.

 About the Artists - Dr Oliver Gingrich

Dr Oliver Gingrich is a media artist, researcher and co-founder and curator at Art in FLUX London. His work often oscillates between intangible phenomena and presence - working frequently with brainwaves, and mixed reality environments. His research focuses on the concept of presence, participatory art forms and the invisible across various media. With the collective Analema Group, the use of high-end technology results in immersive experiences for their audiences (Tate Exchange, 2019, National Gallery X2020). In his photographic series, the artist focuses on questions of male identity and gender (LACMA, Soho Photo NYC). Frequently, Olive utilises biosensors including EEGs to provide new forms of introspection and interactions to his audiences. With a background in Fine Arts (Central Saint Martins, London) and Digital Art (University of Vienna) and a Doctorate in media, Olive practises his art from his studio in Notting Hill, London, and is currently Lecturer at University of Greenwich and post-doctoral researcher at the National Centre for Computer Animation.

About Eva the Polar Bear: Walkabout Puppet

Meet Eva, created by artist Jessica Rost and commissioned and co-owned by Handmade Parade, the beautiful Polar Bear puppet. Animated by one to two puppeteers, Eva is very interactive and loves meeting people. Her legs move mechanically when she walks and when she gets excited, she stands up on her hind legs!

About Celestial

Celestial is a global leader in the entertainment industry, using the latest innovative drone light technology to bring powerful stories to the skies. A UK-based collective of creative animators, filmmakers and tech specialists, Celestial creates pioneering drone art that inspires us to gaze up and reignite our relationship with the stars, our planet, and each other. Their shows also offer a safer and greener alternative to traditional firework displays.

About MKIAC

Milton Keynes Islamic Arts and Culture is an award-winning national charity working in Buckinghamshire and Southeast. Inspired by Islamic arts, heritage and culture that encompasses both traditional and contemporary art forms, MKIAC covers a broad spectrum of inclusive arts-based events throughout the year. They are at the forefront of inclusion and diversity for the creative sector in Milton Keynes.

Formed in 2002, the establishment of MKIAC was prompted by the 9/11 incident in 2001 and focuses on using the arts and creativity as a vehicle to overcome societal divisions and provide a sense of community in our city.

MKIAC is a diverse grassroots organisation that, right from its infancy, has been a bench-setter for embracing diversity and inclusion. As well as events, the organisation has a strong educational outreach programme.

Milton Keynes has always been a diverse place, with a rich history and prominent institutions. MKIAC has been developing and advocating for cultural diversity and diverse artist development in Milton Keynes and the surrounding region.