Charles Bicari is a systems designer and integrator at the Research and Innovation Lab of the Société des arts technologiques in Montréal, building the systems that installations and instruments need underneath them to exist. Trained in electroacoustics at Université de Montréal and in computer science and microelectronics at UQAM, Charles works with AI that is local and small: models running on microcontrollers and Raspberry Pis rather than in a data centre. One project runs a neural synthesizer on a Raspberry Pi 5, its sound steered live by hand gestures. Another passes an image around a cluster of Pis whose AI agents decay and regrow it according to their own CPU heat and load.

At the festival

Where to find Charles

Thursday · October 29
4:55–5:10 PM
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9
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Creative AI in Technological Arts
Charles Bicari shares creative AI work at the Society for Arts and Technology, lessons from software and hardware projects, and a preview of Friday's work.
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Thursday · October 29
5:10–5:15 PM
H.R. MacMillan Space Centre
1100 Chestnut St, Vancouver, BC V6J 3J9
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Q&A with Charles Bicari
Five minutes of audience questions with Charles Bicari.
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Friday · October 30
8:00–10:00 PM
FriendsQuarters
Unit 200, 116 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8
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Closing Party
Music, art, and the conversations that are not ready to end. Friday, 8 to 10 PM at FriendsQuarters, Unit 200, 116 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 1G8. Buzz 200. The Friday closing party includes hosted food and alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. It's included with your ticket. Lights out at ten.
On stage with Kris Krüg.
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Times are Vancouver time and can still move. See the full program

At Futureproof 2026.

Photos: Michelle Diamond / Diamond’s Edge Photography.

Electronic equipment presentation and stage conversation October 29, 2026.

A speaker beside electronic equipment and a slide titled From Research to the Audience October 29, 2026.

More photographs from the festival →

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Realtime latent-space synthesis
A neural synthesizer on a Raspberry Pi 5 whose sound follows your hands through a webcam. The neural network runs on the Pi itself.
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Technocompost
A cluster of Raspberry Pis, each with its own AI agent, rotting and regrowing an image in a loop. The model runs on the local network.
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Computer vision + OSC workshop
A starter pipeline for artists: move in front of a webcam and steer sound or visuals through machine learning, without writing ML code.