👉 Apply here: https://tally.so/r/yP9o24

APPLICATIONS CLOSE: Sunday Mar 8

AIxDESIGN is looking for a UX/UI Designer for the following upcoming projects. Some of these projects have AI-powered features, others don’t. All projects try to bring to life the insights from AIxD’s Slow AI research (2025) like:

• **Esoteric AI:** Today’s AI sits within a longer history of predictive technologies across millenia. How can we learn from predictive practices of the past to design interfaces and user experiences that encourage:
  • understanding the data and patterns behind the predictions?
  • collaborative sense-making?
• **Small AI:**
  • If universal knowledge isn’t a thing, how can we design AI tools that acknowledge their subjective nature?
  • How do we build AI tools that are situated in one specific context?
  • How can we build digital tools that are not of ‘the cloud’ but instead of the places it is materially connected to (data centers, computing raw materials)?

For each of these projects, we’d like to create the final SOW (Scope Of Work) with you – the project UI designer. For that reason we’ve shared our current budget below*.* This current budget is the budget we currently have in our bank account for this work. That being said, we have submitted additional funding applications that are being decided upon right now. If awarded these additional grants, we’ll have more money available for these projects.

As such, we’d like to finalise each projects SOW with you at project kickoff. What can we make with the current budget? What could we make if XX more budget was available?

Upcoming Projects

Saaz-e-yaad: Instruments of Memory

Saaz-e-yaad (Instruments of Memory) explores what becomes possible with AI when we prioritize cultural preservation over scale and profit. The project addresses an urgent need: Kashmiri Pandit folk music is vanishing. This cultural heritage exists primarily on degrading cassette tapes with no institutional preservation support, disappearing as older traditional musicians pass away.

AIxDESIGN has been working with electronic musician Mihir Raina (Lacuna), musician and ML researcher Moisés Horta Valenzuela (𝔥𝔢𝔵𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔰𝔪𝔬𝔰) and Kashmiri folk music producers (Ravimech Studios, Uteesh Dhar) to collate an archive of 1000+ tracks representing over 400 hours of music from the Hindu minority Kashmiri Pandit community.

This culturally-rooted dataset enables us to design and build entirely new kinds of tools. We're building open-source AI applications including: multi-modal archive search tools archive search tools; generative music-making models made by Kashmiri musicians for music-making and live performances; and VJ tools that transform archive metadata into live visuals. These interactions are only possible because of our fuzzy, culturally-specific approach to data.

Things to design:

• 1x AI-powered Ableton plug-in with Kashmiri influences. We’ve developed an Ableton plugin generates audio tracks based on different variables. The plugin objective is to invite creative unpredictability to spark musical inspiration, offering unexpected discoveries rather than faster music-making.
  • Starting budget: €1,000
• 1x music archive search tool with Kashmiri influences. Tentatively called Shikara, this tool will allow site visitors to float through latent space and discover songs in the archive. We want to showcase culturally-relevant data in playful ways helping visitors better understand Kashmiri folk music, its makers, its influences, and the role its played for the Kashmiri Pundit diaspora.
  • Starting budget: €1,000

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