About us
HQI is an artist and cultural studio based in the former BBC social club in White City, London. Since 2018, we’ve supported over 130 artists from top art schools through studio spaces, residencies and artist development programmes, alongside free talks, events, exhibitions, festivals, screenings and club nights across fine art, design, music and technology.
Featured event
The Model is the Message - a talk on ML and AI: inference, ethics and the arts
A free 1-hour talk by Marcel Top and Tessa Edwards on creativity and exploration in Machine Learning and AI as both the instrument and subject of societal critique and reflective self-evaluation. From deepfakes and facial recognition to digital privacy, surveillance and ethics around AI and creativity.
### About the Artists
Marcel Top is a visual artist working between Belgium and London. Top researches the topics of mass surveillance, privacy, data collection. In his practice, he layers a traditional approach to documentary research with a more experimental use of new technologies (such as facial recognition, movement analysis, and deepfakes). The artist uses these technologies to visualise and examine scenarios in which people can protect themselves and their rights by gaining knowledge and reclaiming control of surveillance tools.
Top’s work has been exhibited internationally, including FOMU Antwerp, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Athens Photo Festival, Circulation(s) and PhEST. He received the Encontros da Imagem Discovery Award for Reversed Surveillance (2024), the Prix Médiatine (2024), Folio #3 from the Institut pour la photographie (2023), and a PhMuseum Grant exhibition award (2022). His work is held in the collections of the University of the Arts London and the Institut pour la photographie in Lille.
Tessa Edwards is a creative technologist who moved from fashion into filmmaking and spatial computing before turning to machine learning. She treats ML as a material — working with its latent spaces, flaws, and logic as the medium itself. Her recent work spans deepfake analysis, psychoacoustics, and the use of steganography and hidden signals to explore perception, concealment, and the ways intelligent systems operate in dimensions beyond human reach. As an advocate for privacy and AI safety, Tessa’s work explores the ambiguities of ethical technology systems.
Curated by HQI.
Hosted by The Studio at White City Place.
Upcoming events
1
The Model is the Message - a talk on ML and AI: inference, ethics and the arts
White City Place, 201 Wood Ln, London W12 7FQ, UK, London, GBA free 1-hour talk by Marcel Top and Tessa Edwards on creativity and exploration in Machine Learning and AI as both the instrument and subject of societal critique and reflective self-evaluation. From deepfakes and facial recognition to digital privacy, surveillance and ethics around AI and creativity.
### About the Artists
Marcel Top is a visual artist working between Belgium and London. Top researches the topics of mass surveillance, privacy, data collection. In his practice, he layers a traditional approach to documentary research with a more experimental use of new technologies (such as facial recognition, movement analysis, and deepfakes). The artist uses these technologies to visualise and examine scenarios in which people can protect themselves and their rights by gaining knowledge and reclaiming control of surveillance tools.
Top’s work has been exhibited internationally, including FOMU Antwerp, Fotofestiwal Łódź, Athens Photo Festival, Circulation(s) and PhEST. He received the Encontros da Imagem Discovery Award for Reversed Surveillance (2024), the Prix Médiatine (2024), Folio #3 from the Institut pour la photographie (2023), and a PhMuseum Grant exhibition award (2022). His work is held in the collections of the University of the Arts London and the Institut pour la photographie in Lille.
Tessa Edwards is a creative technologist who moved from fashion into filmmaking and spatial computing before turning to machine learning. She treats ML as a material — working with its latent spaces, flaws, and logic as the medium itself. Her recent work spans deepfake analysis, psychoacoustics, and the use of steganography and hidden signals to explore perception, concealment, and the ways intelligent systems operate in dimensions beyond human reach. As an advocate for privacy and AI safety, Tessa’s work explores the ambiguities of ethical technology systems.
Curated by HQI.
Hosted by The Studio at White City Place.2 attendees
