New HKU research project: Teach us How to Feel

Human knowledge is more than intelligence

Artificial intelligence is developing in rapid pace, yet at the core it remains a rational and automated phenomenon: it does not move, breathe, or feel like humans do. Human knowledge is therefore more than mere intelligence: it has physical, intuitive and relational aspects. Nonetheless, AI keeps finding more ways into our daily lives. And it increasingly affects our view on what knowledge is.

Connecting humans and machines

Teach Us How to Feel is investigating this tension. How can embodied knowledge and AI influence each other in a creative making process? In artistic experiments, AI is not only approached as a technology, but as an ‘other’ – a partner and entity that challenges our physicality and touches upon our emotional self. By bringing together people, machines, artists and researchers, this project is developing new methods and strategies for working with AI, beyond the cliches of it being either technological progress or a threat.

Collaboration within and outside education

For this purpose, HKU’s researchers are working with partners in the professional field as well as in education. MU Hybrid Art House in Eindhoven, a museum where contemporary art meets technology, Innovation:Lab, a platform for art, technology and science, and artists Katja Heitmann and Florian van Zandwijk are all involved in the collective research process. Also contributing to the research are HKU students from the minor Creative Research for Change (HKU Creative Transformation), the minor Artistic Immersive Experiences (HKU Media) and a new minor about AI.

'This project is the start of a collective artistic research process around a theme that is deeply affecting our society'

- Associate lector Veerle Spronck

Solutions for complex societal challenges

The project, that is starting in December 2025 and will last for 18 months, is part of the professorship Creative Practices in Entrepreneurship in collaboration with the professorship (Dis)connected Technology & Creativity. These professorships investigate how creative makers can contribute to solutions for complex societal challenges and how technology and creativity can mutually influence each other in this.

Collective artistic research process

Associate lector Veerle Spronck: “With this project, we are starting Collective artistic research process centred on a theme that deeply affects our society. AI forces us to rethink the value of physicality, intuition and sensory experience. Especially in collaboration with artists and designers, HKU is well-positioned to develop new and meaningful perspectives on this.”