Belfast International Arts Festival and Ulster Presents host a series of talks with leading cultural figures.
Ulster University is excited to welcome Gary Younge, Nicholas McCarthy and an expert panel on AI and Creativity to our Belfast Campus over the course of the Belfast International Arts Festival this October.
Find information on each event below and follow the links to secure your tickets.
A strictly limited number of free tickets are available to Ulster University students on a first-com, first-served basis. If you want to avail of this offer write, write to us at arts.culture@ulster.ac.uk with the title of the event marked clearly in the subject line.
Gary Younge: Dispatches from the Diaspora - From Nelson Mandela to Black Lives Matter
17th October, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 2, Belfast Campus.
For the last three decades Gary Younge has had a ringside seat during the biggest events and with the most significant personalities to impact the black diaspora: accompanying Nelson Mandela on his first election campaign, joining revellers on the southside of Chicago during Obama’s victory, entering New Orleans days after hurricane Katrina or interviewing Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou and Stormzy.
Dispatches from the Diaspora is an unrivalled body of work from a unique perspective that takes you to the frontlines and compels you to engage and to ‘imagine a world in which you might thrive, for which there is no evidence. And then fight for it.’
Nicholas McCarthy: On Leadership and the Key to Success
19th October, 7.00pm, Lecture Theatre 2, Belfast Campus.
Born without a right hand in 1989, Nicholas McCarthy made history when he became the only one-handed pianist ever to graduate from London’s Royal College of Music, in July 2012.
Since then, he has performed extensively in the UK and internationally including for the 2015 edition of Belfast International Arts Festival.
He has guest presented for the BBC Proms and delivered several inspiring TED talks. He also played at the 2012 Paralympics closing ceremony alongside Coldplay.
In this special event, co-hosted with Theatre and Dance NI, Nicholas – this year’s BIAF Featured Artist – will speak about his life and career in music, what he has learned along the way and on the importance of being underestimated.
AI and Creativity: Friend or Foe?
28th October, 3pm, Lecture Theatre 2, Belfast Campus.
Join an expert panel of Dr Eleanor Dare, a critical technologist who works with Game Engines and virtual spaces based at Cambridge University, and Dr Dylan Yamada-Rice, an artist and researcher specialising in storytelling and play, based at Plymouth University alongside Zoe Seaton, Artistic Director of Big Telly Theatre as they explore whether AI just gives an illusion of novel thinking, or whether it is possible for software systems to exhibit creative behaviour.
This event is supported by Future Screens NI