MeshUp #17 – Weekly MishMash Gathering
Hanne Maren Meldahl from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences will present Co-Creating with AI - Pedagogical Innovation and Postdigital Practices in Online Creative Collaboration.
Abstract
As artificial intelligence increasingly enters educational and creative practices, new questions emerge about creativity, authorship, learning, and what it means to be human. In higher arts education, these developments challenge educators and learners to explore new forms of collaboration and critical engagement with AI (Dilek et al., 2025; Gamlem et al., 2026).
This talk explores pedagogical innovation and the fostering of postdigital practices through online creative collaboration with AI. In Spring 2026, 25 participants with backgrounds in aesthetic and pedagogical fields completed the first semester of the continuing and further education course Co-creating with Artificial Intelligence. The teaching team brought together expertise from arts education, music, visual arts, and drama and applied theatre studies, providing a multidisciplinary foundation for the course.
Participants and teachers collectively explored fundamental questions concerning creativity, authorship, and what it means to be human in processes of co-creation with artificial intelligence (Mollick, 2024; Jandrić, 2019; Vinchon et al., 2023). These inquiries were approached through both critical reflection and practical experimentation connected to participants’ own artistic and pedagogical practices.
A central element of the course was engagement with critical perspectives from public discourse on AI. Participants read and discussed selected articles, often linking them to their own professional and artistic contexts, and developed experimental reading agents to support critical inquiry and reflection.
The course was characterized by a strong culture of sharing and dialogue (Hodgson et al., 2017). Through digital platforms, group work, and open discussions, participants and teachers continuously exchanged ideas, experiences, and reflections. This ongoing exchange fostered a learning environment marked by curiosity and trust and gradually evolved into a shared knowledge base that enabled participants to learn from and inspire one another.
The talk presents examples from the course and discusses how collaborative and postdigital approaches to AI can support creative learning processes, critical AI literacy, and new forms of professional and artistic development.
Bio
Hanne Maren Meldahl is an artist, educator, and PhD Research Fellow in Education and Didactic Practices at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), Norway. Her work explores the intersections of education, artistic research, postdigital practices, and artificial intelligence. Drawing on practice-based and collaborative approaches, she investigates how knowledge, and creative practice emerge through interactions between bodies, materials, technologies, and social relations. Meldahl has extensive experience working across teacher education, school development, and artistic practice. Her current PhD project, The Haptic Hacking Lab: Reimagining Arts Teacher Education through Material and Postdigital Practices, explores how haptic, material, and AI-supported practices can contribute to new forms of learning, participation, and educational formation. She is also co-founder of the artist collective WALK OF SHAME and the Radical Utopian Network (RUN).
Access
MishMash MeetUps are short, informal meetings in the consortium where both early career and established researchers present ongoing projects. The events are open for everyone, but, for security reasons, Zoom links are only provided to people that are affiliated with a MishMash Work Package. If not, please ask for access.