WAIT (Workshop for AI Troubles)

The New School
2 West 13th Street
Room 906
New York, NY

WAIT (Workshop on AI Trouble) is a monthly, cross-disciplinary work-in-progress series that convenes graduate students and faculty from across The New School to share and discuss emerging research and creative practice engaging artificial intelligence. Each session features one or two presenters (typically a faculty member and a graduate student) who circulate work in advance, ranging from academic papers, proposals, and dissertation chapters to films, artworks, sound pieces, performances, code-based projects, and other multimodal experiments. Participants are expected to arrive having read, viewed, or listened to the materials, making each gathering a space for substantive, sustained exchange.

Importantly, the term “Trouble” signals not opposition to artificial intelligence, but a critical and generative orientation toward it. We use it as a verb. To “trouble” AI is to slow it down, puzzle through it, and creatively unsettle its assumptions, which includes examining its social, political, aesthetic, technical, and ethical dimensions. The series welcomes projects that analyze AI systems, interrogate their cultural impact, experiment with them as artistic collaborators, rethink their design, or speculate on alternative futures. By bringing together perspectives from across design, social research, the humanities, the performing arts, media, policy, technology, and beyond, WAIT cultivates a shared vocabulary for engaging with AI as both a tool and a terrain of inquiry.

All graduate students and faculty across The New School are invited to participate, whether as presenters or engaged attendees. The workshop is intentionally inclusive of varied levels of familiarity with AI, from technical practitioners to critical theorists to creative experimenters. WAIT aims to foster a collaborative environment where ideas are tested in progress, feedback is thoughtful and constructive, and collective inquiry expands what AI can mean and become, within research, teaching, and creative practice.

3

May 07, 2026
12-1:30 PM

Levy Lorenzo

Presenting his experimentation with Somax2, an interactive AI system, to create real-time, AI-powered music performances. Levy is Professor of Creative Technologies at The New School.

Lydia Nobbs

Presenting a draft of "Machine Politics: Critical Junctures in the Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence." Lydia is a PhD candidate in Political Science at The New School.

2

April 09, 2026
12-1:30 PM

Sareeta Amrute

Presenting her thesis on AI, labor, and power. Sareeta is an Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management

David Bering-Porter

Presenting a draft of "Extracted Twice: The Doubling of Digital Labor, or, AI in the Postcolony." David is an Assistant Professor of Culture and Media.

1

March 12, 2026
12-1:30 PM

Koray Caliskan

Co-presenting with Seniha Koksal and Burak Arikan Us on autonomous AI agents and art economies. Koray is an Associate Professor of Strategic Design and Management at The New School.

Lizabeth Dijkstra

Presenting a work-in-progress paper on the notion of semantic responsibility in the context of LLMs. She argues why the inherent lack of normativity and self-regulation in LLMs is a moral problem, and she critically discusses the two philosophical accounts that centralize this concern. Lizabeth is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at The New School.

Selected Works

F(r)ictions SymposiumCoalition

F(r)ictions 2026Coalition

Stories from the Front Lines: F(r)ictions 2026Coalition

Legal Rights & Collective Bargaining: F(r)ictions 2026Coalition

Alternative Models: The Small, the Specific, and From the Majority: F(r)ictions 2026Coalition

Joel Towers: F(r)ictions 2026Coalition

AI ReaderResearch

AI + Creative FrictionResearch

Creative AI MagnifierExperimentation

We investigate how AI transforms the conditions, politics, and value of creative work.