Speaking AIArt 2025: Building the Future of Arts Education with AI Art

Speaking AIArt 2025: Education is an international conference chaired and co-organised by visual artist and AI Art researcher Tomáš Marušiak at Masaryk University in Brno, one of Central Europe’s leading universities. Held in October 2025, the event explored how artificial intelligence is transforming arts education, research, and artistic practice, with a specific focus on AI Art as a creative, research, and pedagogical tool. The conference positioned itself as a platform connecting artistic practice, academic theory, and technological innovation, and centred on the role of AI Art in arts and art history education – from critical reflections and new curricula to concrete teaching models and experimental tools. Keynote speakers included Philippe Pasquier (Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University), a globally respected figure in generative art and long-time juror of Ars Electronica and SIGGRAPH; Ján Pernecký (QUBU), a pioneer of computational and algorithmic architecture in Central Europe; Jana Horáková (Masaryk University), a leading new media art theorist; and Michal Murín (Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica), a central figure of Central European media art. Through these perspectives, Speaking AIArt 2025: Education established itself as a reference point for future debates on arts education in the age of AI and as a starting platform for the 2026 edition under the theme “Future is Near.”

Speaking AIArt 2025: Building the Future of Arts Education with AI Art

Tomáš Marušiak, visual artist and researcher in the field of consciousness and AI Art, serving as chair of the conference, organized the first edition of the international event Speaking AIArt 2025: Education in cooperation with Masaryk University in Brno – one of the leading universities in Central Europe, where he is currently based. Held in October 2025, the conference opened a focused debate on how artificial intelligence is transforming arts education, research, and artistic practice in AI Art. Speaking AIArt 2025: Education introduced a platform that connects artistic practice, academic research, and technological innovation. Its main focus was the role of AI Art in arts and art history education – from theoretical reflections to concrete pedagogical models, interdisciplinary links, innovative curricula, and experimental creative tools. The aim was to create a space for meaningful dialogue between educators, researchers, and artists about how the conditions of arts education are changing in the era of generative AI.

One of the headline keynote speakers was Philippe Pasquier (Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University), widely regarded as one of the most respected figures in generative art worldwide and a long-standing jury member of Ars Electronica and SIGGRAPH. He presented Autolume and his approach to “small data” in generative AI – a strategy that allows artists to train models on their own compact datasets, preserving artistic authorship and aesthetic control. Among the key speakers was also Ján Pernecký (QUBU), one of the pioneers of computational and algorithmic architecture in Central Europe, who in his talk Computational Design in Architecture: Alternatives to Generative AI outlined critical and alternative approaches to the current boom in generative models. Jana Horáková (Masaryk University), a leading theorist of new media art and digital culture, followed with Navigating the Future of Digital Art History with Artificial Intelligence Tools, showing how AI is reshaping the ways we will write and teach art history in the future.

The Slovak new media scene also had strong representation. Michal Murín (Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica), a long-time Ars Electronica jury member and one of the key figures of Central European media art, presented the new study programme Art and Artificial Intelligence and its connection to contemporary artistic practice. Other speakers – Jozef Olšavský (Futuresearch Studio, Rotterdam), András Cséfalvay (Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava), Paulina Tarara (Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice), Richard Kitta (Technical University of Košice) and Daniel Kvak (Masaryk University) – brought perspectives ranging from architecture and speculative AI to neuroaesthetics and AI-assisted music composition.

Marušiak himself appeared at the conference also as a researcher, presenting the lecture “Artistic Research Strategies in AI Art in the Context of Predicting Future Aesthetic Processes Between Humans and the Agentic Entity”, in which he introduced his MEPAA model and the concept of the Agentic Entity as a possible future co-author of aesthetic processes. With its first edition, Speaking AIArt 2025: Education confirmed its ambition to become a reference platform for debating the future of arts education in the age of artificial intelligence – and set the stage for the 2026 follow-up, which will be built around the central theme “Future is Near.”