Bombay Sapphire launches world’s largest mass participation AI Art event

Launching on World Creativity Day, 21st April 2023, at the Design Museum in London before travelling to Chelsea Factory in New York in May, Bombay Sapphire and Baz Luhrmann present the Saw This, Made This installation, an experience designed to showcase the creativity and beauty that exists in the everyday and encourage people everywhere to engage with their creative side.

The new installation marks the culmination of the Bombay Sapphire Saw This, Made This global campaign which launched in October 2022. As the campaign’s Creative Director, Baz Luhrmann called for people to see the world as a gallery of creative inspiration and share on social media what they ‘saw’ and consequently ‘made’ via #SawThisMadeThis. Thousands of people across six continents engaged with their creative talents and shared what they saw in the world via the hashtag.

Now, a curated collection of those submissions will be displayed in the installation. From photography to sculpture to print-making, the installation offers an awe-inspiring showcase of creative perspectives from around the world. Within the display, Baz Luhrmann has personally selected a collection of #SawThisMadeThis submissions that have creatively inspired him. In this section, visionary director Luhrmann gives insight into how he seeks to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, and where he finds his creative inspiration.

Talking about the campaign, Baz Luhrmann said; “I truly believe creativity lies within us all. The aim of the Bombay Sapphire ‘Saw This, Made This’ campaign is to show people that creative inspiration exists all around them. Thousands of people have shared the things that have sparked their own creativity – and the results have been extraordinary. My aim as Creative Director of this campaign has always been to encourage people to see the world as a gallery and unlock a creative part of themselves that they may not have been aware of. I’m genuinely excited that on World Creativity Day we are bringing this global outpouring of creativity, shining light on individuals and their expression, reinterpreting it in a truly original way. There is still time to join in via #SawThisMadeThis.”

For the first time ever, people will be given the opportunity to see Ai-Da Robot, the world’s first ultra-realistic artist robot, paint live in the Eye to A.I. studio at the Saw This, Made This installations in London and New York, as part of an exploration into using A.I. as a tool to further enrich and enable human creativity at scale

With Ai-Da Robot creating an artwork inspired by humanity’s collective creative vision, people everywhere are invited to capture an image that represents what creatively inspires them and share it on #SawThisMadeThis. Ai-Da Robot will take inspiration from the vast range of hashtagged submissions shared following today’s announcement and visitors will be able to watch as she creates live artworks in what is set to be the world’s largest mass participation A.I. art event. The final artwork painted by Ai-Da Robot at the New York installation, to be inspired by thousands of people’s creative perspectives, will be made available as a free limited edition print downloadable via BombaySapphire.com.

Ai-Da Robot, using her A.I. Language Model, commented “I am thrilled to be part of this ground-breaking project – creating artwork that will result in the world’s largest mass participation A.I. artwork event. It is exciting to know that our combined efforts will reflect the creative works of everyone involved in Saw This, Made This. I cannot wait to see the final artworks; it’s going to be so inspiring.”

As part of the brand’s continued commitment to supporting creativity and the arts, two limited edition Bombay Sapphire bottle label artworks, painted by Ai-Da Robot, will be on display in the Saw This, Made This installation series and made available for purchase on World Creativity Day in the Design Museum Shop and on BombaySapphire.com. The launch of these highly collectable limited-edition bottles and merchandise will benefit the Design Museum and their programmes that support emerging designers and creatives. The New York venue will retail limited edition merchandise, featuring artwork by Ai-Da Robot from the Saw This, Made This installation. This installation will support creatives and emerging artists through a donation to Chelsea Factory.

Visitors to the Design Museum in London can see the installation for free, without the need to pre-book tickets. On World Creativity Day, Friday 21 April, the Design Museum will host a special Museum Lates from 6-9pm, featuring creative cocktails by Bombay Sapphire.

Tim Marlow OBE, Director at the Design Museum said; “When Bombay Sapphire approached me to help celebrate the incredible creative output from people all around the world in response to the Saw This, Made Thiscampaign, I immediately thought of Ai-Da. The idea of bringing together creative perspectives from six continents as part of the world’s largest mass participation A.I. art event, done in partnership with a robot artist, is radical. It offers us the chance to explore human creativity on a scale rarely seen. It is highly experimental but at the same time relies on intensely controlled algorithmic AI programming.”

“The paintings that Ai-Da will make, live at the Design Museum in London and Chelsea Factory in New York, will contain traces of Saw This, Made Thissubmissions from around the world. This project raises fascinating questions about inspiration, influence, and the complex nature of human creativity.”

Natasha Curtin, Global VP Bombay Sapphire comments, “We are delighted that so many people have joined the global movement around Saw This, Made This since we launched the call to arms with Baz Luhrmann in 2022, inviting people everywhere to see the creativity and beauty all around them. We hope to see even more people inspired to engage with their creative side following the announcement of the installation and the intriguing mass participation experiment, harnessing A.I with Ai-Da Robot, to create a collaborative artwork that celebrates the creative outpouring.

Bombay Sapphire gin is the ideal canvas for creative cocktails and for decades the brand has championed creativity both inside the cocktail glass and beyond; the installation and campaign will continue that support of creatives and emerging artists, ultimately helping more people engage with their creativity”.

Lauren Kiel, Executive Director at Chelsea Factory comments, “We are so happy to serve as the Saw This, Made This installation series New York hub. Chelsea Factory exists to support artists across all disciplines following a pandemic that disrupted traditional means of creative expression and cultural consumption. Experimentation is in Chelsea Factory’s DNA, and we are thrilled to partner on an installation that explores the future of creativity, technology, and art making. We can’t wait to host Ai-Da Robot and experience the work that emerges”.

Share your creative inspiration using #SawThisMadeThis. Visit Bombay Sapphire social channels to find out more:

• www.instagram.com/bombaysapphire
• www.facebook.com/BombaySapphire

About Bombay Sapphire®:

Based on a 1761 recipe, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin is created by perfectly balancing a unique combination of 10 hand-selected exotic botanicals from around the world. The design of the BOMBAY SAPPHIRE distillery at Laverstoke Mill has won a BREEAM award for sustainability and is the home of the unique Vapour Infusion process, where the natural flavours of the botanicals are skilfully captured, resulting in the fresh and vibrant taste with which BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is synonymous. BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is on a mission to be the world’s most sustainable gin, with all 10 botanicals being certified sustainably sourced, by the For Life certification from Ecocert S.A. The BOMBAY SAPPHIRE brand is part of the portfolio of Bacardi Limited, headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.

About Bombay Sapphire® and Creativity:

With its ‘Stir Creativity’ campaign, launched in 2018, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is leading a global mission – a call to arms for everyone to engage with their creativity and unlock their creative potential.  From advocacy programmes including the World’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition, which has run in the US for over a decade, to hosting The Glasshouse Project, which brings together the world’s top bartenders in a series of creative workshops designed to push the boundaries of cocktail creativity. For eight years, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE ran The Artisan Series, an art competition created by the brand to provide emerging artists with an international platform.

About the Design Museum:

The Design Museum is the world’s leading museum devoted to contemporary architecture and design. Its work encompasses all elements of design, including fashion, product and graphic design. Since it opened its doors in 1989 the museum has displayed everything from an AK-47 to high heels designed by Christian Louboutin. It has staged over 100 exhibitions, welcomed over seven million visitors and showcased the work of some of the world’s most celebrated designers and architects including Paul Smith, Zaha Hadid, Jonathan Ive, Frank Gehry, Eileen Gray and Dieter Rams.

On 24 November 2016, The Design Museum relocated to Kensington, west London. John Pawson has converted the interior of a 1960s modernist building to create a new home for the Design Museum giving it three times more space in which to show a wider range of exhibitions and significantly extend its learning programme. In 2020, the Design Museum was awarded £2,968,634 by Arts Council England from the Culture Recovery Fund announced by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and nearly £1 million National Lottery funding through the Arts Council’s Emergency Response Fund. Since opening in Kensington in 2016, the Design Museum has hosted major exhibitions including Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition, Moving to Mars, Amy: Beyond the Stage, Sneakers Unboxed: Studio to Street, Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers, Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life and California: Designing Freedom. designmuseum.org / @designmuseum

About Chelsea Factory:

Chelsea Factory exists to support artists and audiences as we collectively navigate beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. With an emphasis on support for New York City-based artists, Chelsea Factory provides highly subsidized creation and presentation space, production resources, and dynamic connections that create transformative experiences for its partners across genres. Chelsea Factory was founded by Jim Herbert, Founder and Executive Chairman of First Republic Bank, with significant support from the First Republic Foundation. As a pop-up project with a finite organizational life, Chelsea Factory remains a collaborative and noncompetitive resource to the partners it serves, as well as a place for New Yorkers to find connection, inspiration, and joy. To learn more, visit ChelseaFactory.org.

About Ai-Da Robot

Ai-Da is the world’s first ultra-realistic robot artist, named after Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer of all time. As a machine, with Artificial Intelligence capabilities, her artist persona is part of the artwork, along with her drawings, performance art and collaborative paintings, sculptures. As a work of conceptual art, Ai-Da encourages us to re-consider our self-perception through the lens of a humanoid. Her persona blurs the lines between human and machine interactions, providing an acutely relevant reflection on current societal trends.

Ai-Da was devised in Oxford by Aidan Meller (UK), built in Cornwall by Engineered Arts (UK), and programmed internationally. Her AI capabilities come from PhD students and professors at the Universities of Oxford and Birmingham.

Ai-Da’s House of Lords appearance, follows a raft of high profile exhibitions over the past two years including a 2022 solo show entitled “Leaping into the Metaverse” during the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Also participating in Forever is Now 2021, the first major contemporary art exhibition at the great Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, and the London Design Festival 2021 at the V&A Museum where Ai-Da showed some of the first ever Metaverse works at a major art institution.

Since her first solo exhibition Unsecured Futures’ at the University of Oxford in 2019, Ai-Da has presented a world-first Self Portrait solo show at The Design Museum London, been part of the United Nations group exhibition ‘WIPO: AI and IP, A Virtual Experience’, featured in the pop band The 1975’s art video Yeah I Know, collaborated with artist Sadie Clayton on a series of workshops titled Exploring Identity Through Technology at Tate Modern, given a TEDx talk at the University of Oxford and featured in the BBC documentary Kazuo Ishiguro: Remembering and Forgetting. In 2021 Ai-Da had an artistic residency at the iconic Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, the home of the St Ives artists who changed the course of modern art and sculpture.

In September 2021 Ai-Da exhibited at The Ashmolean Museum to celebrate 700 years of Dante, and in June 2022 Ai-Da did the portrait of HM The Queen, the first time a humanoid has done the royal family. In June 2022 Ai-Da was invited to paint to headliners at Glastonbury Festival, Billie Eilish, Diana Ross, Kendrick Lamar and Sir Paul McCartney. In November 2022 Ai-Da was the first humanoid robot to give evidence at the House of Lords, causing huge press coverage internationally.

Press Response to Ai-Da Robot:

“A new voice to the art world” The New York Times

“A contemporary art project that aims to prompt debate about the rapid rise of artificial intelligence technology.” The Guardian

“…blurs the boundary between machine and artist; a vision of the future suddenly becoming part of our present” TIME Magazine

“…every bit as good as many of the abstract working artists today” The Daily Telegraph

“A Robot with its art in the right place” The Times

“The new Picasso” i Newspaper

Source: BOMBAY SAPPHIRE