Introducing André Piza
What’s your background?
My first background is in journalism. Although it has been a while since I worked as a journalist, it is still a strong point of reference for my understanding of research practice and how it impacts the world beyond academia. I worked in print, radio and film production, gradually transitioning to the creative industries. Eventually, I spent quite a few years working in theatres as a producer and a theatre director. I have an MA in Theatre Directing (RADA) and have directed projects produced by the Theatre Royal Stratford East and Battersea Arts Centre. Doing or facilitating research has always been central to all the projects I worked on, whether in the media, the creative or academic sectors.
Fortunately, research and arts institutions are increasingly working together and that is how I ended up working more and more in academia. Before the Alan Turing Institute, I worked at People’s Palace Projects, an arts research centre based at Queen Mary University of London. There, I managed international projects in collaboration with major arts and policy organisations as well as some of the most radical independent artists and activists. This experience made me passionate about the impact that the arts and research can make on people’s lives and it has since become an important focus of my work as a manager, producer or as a creative. At Queen Mary I also managed Network, the then university’s hub for research in the creative economy, where I delivered projects bringing together businesses, academics and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines, from computer science to law, business, history and the arts.
More recently, I managed Living with Machines (2018–2023), the Turing’s flagship Digital Humanities project, funded by the AHRC. I’m now working as Strategic Programme Manager and I’m also a founder and organiser of the Turing’s AI&Arts group. My producing and creative work has been happening under the umbrella of the Contemporary Narratives Lab, a project I co-founded with Robin Kwong (Wall Street Journal) and Glenda Cooper (City University of London).
What excites you about Arts, Data Science and AI?
I find that AI and Data Science bring exciting opportunities to create and discover new stories, or stories that have not been told more widely. Putting all the (very) important copyrights discussion aside, I think generative AI and data science in general are bringing a momentous change in how creatives work and how audiences experience art.
I particularly welcome members to reach out to me in the group’s Slack space about…
…creative projects (any discipline, but specially performance/theatre) that are based on stories emerging from data research and journalistic investigations, particularly when data is used to create a sense of real-time action. Another point of interest is extracting meaning from disinformation and gaps/biases in data to understand what they reveal about the stories they are connected with. I’m also interested in research impact in the creative industries, both through corporate or third sector organisations.
What’s a recent artwork (any discipline) that made an impression on you?
There is quite a lot of really brave theatre being done. I enjoy works that acknowledge the audience in the room, but still keep the age-old stage magic, taking us to a different (often magical) place. Two works that I think are good examples of that are Complicité’s Drive your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead (2022), directed by Simon McBurney and Battersea Arts Centre Beatbox Academy’s Frankenstein: How to Make a Monster (2021), co-directed by Conrad Murray and David Cumming.
Where can we find out more about you and your work?
@andrepiza.bsky.social
@andrepiza
linkedin.com/in/andre-piza/
medium.com/@andrepiza
