conference video archive Aiiiii Art Center, shanghai
aai International Conference on Art
aai艺术与人工智能国际论坛 2021,上海同济大学设计创意学院
This is my review (notes) of the “aai International Conference on art(ai)”, which is held virtually by Aiiiii Art Center in collaboration with the Art and Artificial Intelligence Lab of Tongji University. The event was live-streamed on the MANA platform.
(on-going edition)
01.「 Who is the Artist? Cognitive Assemblages and Distributed Agency 」_ Katherine Hayles
Distinguished Research Professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles and the James B
- position & perspective: researcher, writer
- keywords: #cognitive assemblages
- point of view: cognitive assemblages including software (AI)
As a research professor, educator and writer, Dr Katherine introduces her idea of the “Cognitive Assemblages”, which could be understood as a collective agency, that includes the creators themselves (human) as well as the applied software or media (non-human collaborators). Based on that, she further discusses the relationship between the creators/artists and those softwares through three study cases, where the software plays different roles: *software as the collaborator * software out of control * generator(software) as author
Overall, she thinks that AI is not neutral. It is a developing tool, that continuously changing and shaping our understanding of ourselves as human beings.
02.「 Is AI Only Human? 」_Aric Chen
Professor and founding Director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University; the newly-appointed General and Artistic Director of Het Nieuwe Instituut
- position & perspective: art & design curator
- keywords: #human #more than human #AI as speculation
- point of view: AI as Mirror and Speculation for non-human agency
Robot artist, AI-generated painting or even trained AI curator have already been exhibited in the art gallery. Starting from the question “is AI only human?”, Aric Chen offers a curator’s perspective on the humanity of AGI. His examples point out that AI will amplify human’s characteristics (Norman AI) and would also have a racial bias (e.g. in facial recognition software).
By the book <more-than-human>, he further discussed how AI and the model of AGI as a kind of speculation to mirroring capacities and abilities of human subjects. At the same time, he points out that we should try to explore and speculate more from non-human or more-than-human agency.
03.「 Dreamscapes: A Collaboration of Nature, Man, and Machine 」_Daniel Ambrosi
Artist
- position & perspective: deep dreaming artist
- keywords: #deep dreaming #eye-body-mind experience(vision) #the way of seeing # visual cognition #pastoral experience
- point of view: Machine(AI) as a collaborator to create the pastoral experience
From the photography of nature to the landscape oil paintings, as an image-processing artist who mainly practices on deep dreaming effect, Daniel Ambrosi talked about how he uses deep dream AI (neural network) as a collaborative tool to create beautiful, triggering images that evoke our pastoral experience with nature.
04. 「 ?- (What, The_Author) is 」_Filippo Fabrocini
Professor in the College of Design & Innovation and Director of the “Sustainable AI Lab”
- position & perspective: computer scientist with philosophical/ critical perspective
- keywords: #AI & creativity #4Ps #randomness #explorative strategy #combinatorial strategy #transformational strategy
- point of view: AI is random-AI approaches the randomness in artwork; AI for artistic/creative transformation; we need sustainable AI
Through a lens of abstract paintings in history, Professor Filippo starts with the “4Ps” theories to discuss the creativity of AI. He bridges a connection between the randomness in the creation of the artwork and the approach of AI neural network. With examples from geometry, painting, music and performance, he finally introduces the “transformational strategy” as a common process and crucial point for creativity in all kinds of industry, which is also reflected in AI artwork.
reference: <what is creativity?>sliceshare
10. 「 Art & AI — A New Era for Creativity 」_Obvious
Artist group
- position & perspective: ai artist group
- keywords: #creativity #Generative Art #Gans #NFT Art #digital art market
- point of view: AI-generated art as human-machine collaboration, a new trend in the art market/human-machine collaboration as a new trend in the art market
11. 「 AI Delivered: Abjection and Redemption 」_ZHANG Ga
12. 「 Collision 」_Christian Mio Loclair
13. 「 Handmade A.I — A Game State of Mind 」_Alina Constantin
the Graduating Masters in Game Design at NYU’s Game Center
14. 「 Creative Visual Information Communication Design 」_CAO Nan
15. 「 Chagall vs Malevich or How Can We Become Aliens? 」 _Lev Manovich
- position & perspective: media art theorist
- keywords: #Chagall vs Malevich #avant-garde Art #Aesthetic AI #algorithm art #image processing #styles in human culture
- point of view: Human art and design perhaps always related to algorithm system; AI helps us to create new kinds of art and free us from the limits of creativity
By connecting it to the artwork of the avant-garde artists Chagall and Malevich, he sees today’s Aesthetic AI as a cultural mechanism for automating aesthetic creation & choices. He talks about the systematics and styles in art and design work (especially in abstract art), and expects AI art, as kinds of “aliens”, could free us from the prison of our creativity or certain styles.
reference:
16. 「Entangled AllobioEcologies: Latent Architectures in LIquid Space 」_Marcos Novak
Founding Director of the transLAB at UCSB
- position & perspective: architect, artist, composer, theorist, pioneer of algorithmic design, and the originator of THEMAS
- keywords: #Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace #alien #selective reality substitution #Latent space #Entropy
- point of view: Liquid arts in Latent space; Latent arts in Liquid space
Marcos Novak starts with his theory of “Liquid Architectures in Cyberspace” published in 1991. His speech <Entangled AllobioEcologies: Latent Architectures in Liquid Space> is about How could we use “AI + ML(machine learning) + XR” to imagine and rebuild a Utopian and poetic Urban space, which use Latent Space to continuously evolve and reconstruct new images as visual representations.
17. 「 Reformatting Vision 」_Andrew Witt
Co-founder of Certain Measures
