Whether we like it or not, AI has taken over everything. From development technology to the arts, it now sits squarely at the heart of cultural consciousness. In less than a decade, AI has forced an epochal shift in how we think about authorship, authenticity, and the essence of creativity. And as it becomes both canvas and collaborator, a new battleground emerges: one that pits the known limits of human storytelling against the vast unpredictability of generated possibility.
It is in this charged terrain that BHAI (Bombay Hub for Artificial Intelligence) emerges — as a space where filmmakers, artists, coders, and dreamers converge to interrogate the role of AI in shaping aesthetic futures. BHAI is the property of Phenomenal AI, an upcoming text-to-video platform. Their inaugural event, pointedly titled Machines & Monsters, is an exploration of the creative tensions between technology and imagination. Hosted on World AI Appreciation Day, the event sets out not to praise the machine, but to pull it apart, examining its mythologies, capabilities, and monstrous uncertainties.
Curated with an incisive thematic frame, Machines & Monsters is BHAI’s opening salvo in what promises to be a bi-monthly series of gatherings. The debut edition places horror and science fiction at its core for their historic function as genres that expose our cultural fault lines. In a world where AI tools proliferate faster than our moral understanding of them, horror becomes a mirror; What do our machines fear? What do we fear of our machines?
The speakers for the evening aim to bring this complex theme to life. Sapna Bhavnani, known for her work across performance, activism, and filmmaking, will lead with 'What Scares Us Now?' — a deeply considered reflection on horror, psy-fi, and the ways in which AI destabilizes traditional storytelling. Sapna's curatorial eye has already reshaped India’s independent horror landscape through the Wench Film Festival and Zombiecon; her latest work traverses the grotesque, the gendered, and the deeply human through new AI-adjacent narratives.
Following her is Prateek Arora, a screenwriter and AI artist whose acclaimed worldbuilding project 'Rocketganj' has reimagined Indian urban mythology through genre cinema. In his session, 'Shaping Stories in New & Unpredictable Ways', Prateek will chart how AI isn’t just a tool, but a co-author, raising urgent questions around memory, censorship, and the politics of imagination in a hyper-mediated society. Currently VP of Development at BANG BANG, Prateek has a sharp sensibility that straddles futurism and nostalgia, with his practice positioning AI as a narrative force.
Beyond talks, Machines & Monsters promises a textured program of prompt hacks, GenAI tool-sharing, and a closed-door networking experience designed for a curated community of roughly 50 creators. By decentering jargon-heavy tech discourse and re-situating it in storytelling, BHAI attempts to democratize a rapidly enclosing frontier — moving AI out of labs and into conversations.
What BHAI also signals, is a reminder that in the age of intelligent machines, the most radical act might be to imagine better, weirder, and more human futures. Because monsters, real or rendered, have always been our most honest mirrors.
Machines & Monsters takes place on July 16, 2025, from 4–7 PM at One8 Commune, Juhu, Mumbai. Attendance is RSVP-only.
Follow BHAI here for more details.
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