Slanted Magazine #37—AI

slanted 37

ai

artificial intelligence

DIGITAL CULTURE GLITCH TRANSHUMANISM PRIVACY ECHOCHAMBERS CONNECTION CHANCES DEAD ENDS RULES 01

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SLANTED #37—ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Author

JACK DIGNAM

DIGITAL CULTURE

01

To speak of ‘digital culture’ is to invoke ‘dematerialisation’, willingly or not.

And despite our zeitgeist’s rabid obsession with the idea, dematerialisation has long been theorised in relation to art and culture. The term first gained momentum in light of Lucy Lippard and John Chandler’s The Dematerialisation of Art in relation to ‘ultra-conceptual art—art that is said to almost exclusively accentuate thought to the extent of its material becoming antiquated—and saw its philosophical underpinnings taken to the extreme in the work of Arthur Danto.

But Walter Benjamin’s famous The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility could retrospectively be said to first touch on the concept in its seminal claim that art’s aura is dead in the age of technological reproduction.

Yet there is something inherently different in dematerialisation as these theorists conceive it and how we interact with dematerialised culture today.

Seeing tourists huddled around the Mona Lisa, basking in the warm glow of the camera’s flash and the security offered from their waist-wrapped fanny packs, and one can instantly understand what I mean here: my dematerialised culture— that which I played a hand in creating—finds an existence in the material world through a sort of ‘instance’ that bestows it with an artificial corporeality; if dematerialised culture has anything like an aura, this might just be it. Simultaneously, the genesis of dematerialisation coincides with further commodification of art in the guise of entertainment industries, and in this later instance one sees no semblance of productive ownership like that found at the Louvre.

Human beings have a tricky time with imagining the immaterial: that we signify the end of life as we know it with reference to environmental quotas is telling enough. And this is where the metaphysical and political potentiality of dematerialisation lies today, that is in realising the imagination as explicit, or, in its inverse expression, inteorising the exterior world. If language can be said to reflect thought on a collective level, then its historical development must necessarily be tied to what we encounter in the world; if what we can encounter today is no longer limited to such a material base, then the doors that define our conceptual limitations have been blown open. Thus, digital culture isn’t anything new per se, but with it comes a difference in emphasis, or the potential for a repetition of difference, perhaps. In other words, with dematerialised culture comes the chance to read the world anew, that is the chance to read that which was never written, through manifesting the previously unrealisable.

Towards a radical and demythicised dematerialisation we trod.

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DEEP—FASTER FASHION

3 2018

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THE FABRICANT

NED

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LANDSCAPES

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CROSSLUCID

GER

“We are used to believing that machines are built, while human beings grow, that machines only move as directed, while human beings move autonomously. These assumptions no longer correspond to reality. Human beings are moving less and less autonomously, relying more and more on technical prostheses, while machines are learning to learn and becoming endowed with powers of self replication” — Franco Bifo Berardi. For those not familiar with the book Landscapes Between Eternities (2018), CROSSLUCID are masters at imagining how our future will look. Through sixty-nine portraits and twenty-eight still lifes, the artistic duo portraits the mutant landscapes of endless fluidities between what we still identify as human and the multiplicity of textures, technologies, and artificialities of the post-race, post-gender cyborgs inhabiting the world(s) of tomorrow. In 2018, regarding Landscapes Between Eternities, CROSSLUCID wrote: “the body is examined, idolized, but also appears in a state of emergency: it is unstable, seamlessly slipping

between one virtual avatar and the other.

Circulating in a transitional reality, elements previously captured in conservation phases are set free and unexpected new combinations emerge, thus uttering an urging invitation to re-imagine new forms for our being in the world.” Three years later, we find ourselves enraptured by the mystery of 5,000 images between portrait, still life and expressionist topography, reminiscent of CROSSLUCID’s aesthetic, but alien to our comprehension of what is human, natural, artificial, digital.

The encounter between the two artists and the two data alchemists, Martino Sarolli and Emanuela Quaranta, transmuted an imaginative and aesthetic process into theological research, that is, a study of patterns we can’t understand, but we know are part of us. The four collaborators engaged in an in-depth conversation about the project, inclusive of its challenges and the discoveries it led to, hosted on Berlin’s Cashmere Radio.

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CROSS LUCID

LANDSCAPES

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BETTINA ZERZA USA

AUT

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS FUTURE SPACE The coronavirus pandemic has shown us the vulnerability of humankind and has presented a unique opportunity for a sustainable reset. Can the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution offer new tools for better stewardship of our planet?

By integrating new technologies into large-scale projects before they’re

built, we can prototype futures with new tools such as A.I., which can help to expand human creativity—intellectually, physically, and emotionally. As the digital world merges with the physical one, blurring virtual and physical space, the robots are becoming smarter, evolving from arbiters of factory-style automation to sophisticated agents of transformation, changing our daily lives. Maximizing the potential of digitalization, technologies of the virtual realm present an opportunity to rethink the experience of space, society, and culture. Cities designed with integrated smart technologies and sustainable energy sources can improve urban life. Artificial intelligence can transform the environment we live in, and cities are facing the rise of urban intelligence (U.I.). Mobile sensors and handheld devices, referred to as “urban tech,” allow cars, buses, bicycles, and citizens to collect data about air quality, noise pollution and the urban environment at large. Smart urban infrastructures can address issues such as crime, environmental pollution and public health, and help improve quality of life.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) migrates into the urban environment, twenty-

first-century architecture can find a new purpose by adopting a coherent vision of the future. Virtual space can function as a mediating layer between the real and the yet to come, between cultural identities and a truly global technological existence. Prop tech and climate tech are innovative ways to use intelligent systems in real estate, promoting energy efficiency and building decarbonization. A.I. can lead to autonomous buildings that help tackle climate change and contribute to a sustainable and resilient future. These technologies go beyond automation and toward autonomy. A.I. will drive our cars and it will also do so much more: capture reality, accurately construct buildings and infrastructure, and learn from the

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data collected by sensors. Digital twin is a term used to describe a virtual replica of a physical object or phenomenon. With the potential that lies in digital sensing, data

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9 collection and A.I., cities and the lives of all those who inhabit them will benefit from improved air quality, efficient mass transit, and globally networked communications systems. As the implementation of digital technologies has become prevalent, cities are serving as global hubs for data-driven innovation. Once aggregated, this data can be captured, processed and made accessible to urban communities and stakeholders. Visualizing the data aggregated by smart city technologies—capitalizing on the feedback loop between human sensing and machine sensing—permits the development of new modes of urban analysis predicated on bottom-up participatory models rather than top-down ones.

As technological evolution defines the modern city, it is inevitable that

artificial intelligence will continue to transform public and private space. These technologies promise a means of creating urban environments that are sensitive to the needs and desires of their communities by enabling architects and urban planners to design responsive structures rather than continuing to merely install static technical systems. With growing populations, global metropolises are hubs for cultural, social, artistic, economic, technological and political discourse. To run and manage these cities, humans have become ever more reliant on digital technologies to help efficiently process tasks and amass and share information. This acceleration has signaled a need to anticipate future developments and sustain a workable, environmentally conscious strategy in order to ensure the well-being of residents of urban centers, all while embracing digitalization and collective experiences to build more resilient communities. Sustainable urbanization can find a new purpose by adopting a coherent vision of the future that’s concerned with modes of existence and innovation evolving out of the Digital Industrial Revolution. By guiding that transformation in a way that maximizes benefit and minimizes social cost, artificial intelligence can help governments and citizens to implement the Green New Deal globally, as humanity strives toward climate neutrality and a clean economy by cutting pollution and supporting the efficient use of resources. A.I. can make cities more sustainable, reduce greenhouse gas emis-

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sions, and contribute to the well-being of the planet at large.

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NEURAL ZOO 2020

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SOFIA CRESPO

GER

Neural Zoo is an exploration of the ways creativity works: the recombination of known elements into novel ones. These images resemble nature, but it is an imagined nature that has been rearranged. Our visual cortex recognizes the textures, but the brain is simultaneously aware that those elements don’t belong to any arrangement of reality that it has access to. Computer vision and machine learning could offer a bridge between us and a speculative “natures” that can

only be accessed through high levels of parallel computation. Starting from the level of our known reality, we could ultimately be digitizing cognitive processes and utilizing them to feed new inputs into the biological world, which feeds back into a cycle. Routines in artificial neural networks become a tool for creation, one that allows for new experiences of the familiar. Can art be reduced to the remapping of data absorbed through sensory processes?

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SOFIA CRESPO

ARTIFICIAL NATURAL HISTORY

Artificial Natural History is an ongoing book and fine-art print project that explores speculative, artificial life through the lens of a “natural history book that never was.” By using artificial neural networks (A.I.) to generate these images, the very renaissance project of humanism coupled with the scientific project of categorization and systematization

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WIP

become a mutable, distorted aesthetic surface wherein the specimens, and their indecipherable descriptions, regain some unknowable agency. The specimens of the artificial natural history both celebrate and play with the seemingly endless diversity of the natural world, one that we still have a very limited comprehension and awareness of.

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2021

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ALPENGLOW & AURORA

SABRINA RATTÉ

2018

Alpenglow and Aurora is a diptych depicting utopian spaces where painterly textures meet with 3D perspectives. By the use of reflective surfaces and fragmented windows, the iridescent magic-hour landscapes invade the room and become an intrinsic part of the architecture; interior and exterior are

merging to form an ambiguous space. Each print is presented with a video projection that illuminates and animates specific details of the composition. While looking at the image, the colors of the landscapes change slowly, from purple, to green, to blue, subtly affecting the atmosphere of the tableau.

ALIQUIS

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2019

Slowly landing onto a glass architecture, an undefined substance is torn apart by sharp

edges and disintegrates into particles that spread into the atmosphere.

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RADIANCES

FRA

Through a combination of 3D animation, video synthesis and digital manipulations, painterly

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2018

textures and organic, forms emerge to create abstract landscapes.

NUÉE 2020

Created with brush strokes found on the Internet and computer generated drawings, Nuée evokes a wintery landscape where a floating

entity seems to be made of both flesh and air, gravity and lightness; an ambiguous presence embracing its surroundings.

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SABRINA RATTÉ

CAN

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A.I. EXHIBITION FASHION DESIGN STUDIO ACADEMY OF ARTS, ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN PRAGUE

2018

P. 278 ← © → P. 283

CINDY KUTÍKOVA

CZE

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The increasing impact of A.I. on our lives is becoming integral part of everyday reality.

Fashion design studio’s experimental project is investigating A.I. phenomenon from the perspective of the Millennials, a digitally native generation that is naturally driven by responsibility and sustainability. Fields of interest includes digital therapy, health care, gaming, wellbeing, social mapping, augmented reality and mixed reality. The creative outcome is based in extensive research, experimentation and creative process development, and is anticipating continuation focused on practicality and functionality. Students present their individual unique creative

vision supported with relevant visual project description including original method, technique, and application. The current conclusion benefits from the recognition of A.I. as a tool that can augment human perception and creativity and help us to become more human.

For designers it means potential extra time and space for purposeful consideration. On an intellectual level the question is what will happen when we abandon giving in to forms of thoughts and release ourselves from clinging to a matter. The truth is we still don’t understand the magic that makes us human.

What if, then, the physical shape of human dimension is just an illusion?

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CINDY KUTÍKOVA

A.I. EXHIBITION FASHION DESIGN STUDIO ACADEMY OF ARTS, ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN PRAGUE

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404.1 2021

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404.ZERO

RUS

The single 404.1 opens up the first full-length album 404.zero and becomes a great beginning for a breathtaking musical immersion. In this track, reminiscent of electronic chorale, the sound elements of the entire album flicker—multi layered textures of dark-

ambient, whimsical sound loops of IDM’s natural power of glitch and noise. The first single, like a beam of analog sound, cuts a pathway into the acoustic space of the 404.0 release.

404.zero’s first full-length album will come out on June 5th, 2021.

404.3

“Deconstructing my own artistic process and teaching it to painting robots is my attempt at a better understanding of myself. When I began with my first machines fifteen years ago, they were only capable of simple tasks, like connecting dots and painting by numbers.

My most recent robots, however, use deep learning neural networks, artificial intelligence, feedback loops, and computational creativity to make a surprising amount of independent aesthetic decisions.”— 404.zero

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PROJECT H.E.A.R.T. HOLOGRAPHIC EMPATHY ATTACK ROBOTICS TEAM CAN

A twist on popular militainment shooter video games, Project H.E.A.R.T. invites the viewer to place their fingers on a custom biodata gathering device and summon their enthusiasm to engage a holographic popstar in “combat therapy.” The device gathers blood flow and skin conductance data to detect emotional engagement: a user’s “enthusiasm” stimulates the holographic pop star to sing in the virtual warzone, inspiring military fighters to continue. The emotional data of the user is woven into the gaming mechanic of enemies

and the player avatar, creating an empathydriven A.I. combat. As soldiers battle not only against their enemies, but also against their own lack of confidence, they vocalize their complaints. The user is challenged to summon their positivity to boost morale. At the end of the experience the user is confronted with their score: how many of their soldiers were traumatized opposed to how many enemies were killed. No further information is given as to whether one has won or lost the game.

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ERIN GEE & ALEX M. LEE

2017

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TERMINAL BLINK

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VADIM EPSTEIN

RUS

2020

StyleGAN2 neural network, trained on human faces (as the most presented subject in Computer Vision practice), was tuned to concrete architecture, reducing generated identities to impersonal gray-concrete looks.

Those “faceless” faces were processed with another network (StarGAN2), trained on visual art—from Kandinsky to engravings—to apply diverse imaginative representations. The results have traversed quite far from all those

sources, opening the whole new picture.

Vadim Epstein treats Machine Vision hereby as insight (rather than eyesight) concept.

Using artificial neural networks as a model of human sensory perception allows for us to rethink (and possibly redefine) its semantics and aesthetics. Produced synthetic imagery usually follows familiar artistic tendencies, yet, it may go far beyond that, as soon as we’re ready to welcome that.

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MULTI-SCALE NEURAL TEXTURE SYNTHESIS.

that we are drawn to fractal texture with structure across scales. These images mashup textures from smoke and mosaics to sunflowers and urban streets, creating surreal and evocative asemic compositions.

LATENT SPACE INTERPOLATION

Latent Space Interpolation is joint work with Mattie Tesfaldet. For their scientific article Fourier-CPPNs for Image Synthesis the artistresearchers created a new algorithm to generate images with neural networks focusing on capturing fine details. In this image they

move between the machine’s idea of each of the artists’ portraits. Of the infinite possible transitions, the route taken begins to reveal the algorithm’s normally invisible internal structures and biases.

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Much of Xavier’s practice investigates visual texture, the intricacy of the natural world and ornament in the arts. For these images, an arts and CS transdisciplinary contribution, Xavier designed a new approach to generating textures using neural networks, with the insight

XAVIER SNELGROVE

2019

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EDMOND DE BELAMY

OBVIOUS

2018

Edmond de Belamy is a generative adversarial network portrait painting constructed in 2018 by Paris-based arts-collective Obvious. Printed on canvas, the work belongs to a series of generative images called La Famille de Belamy. The name Belamy is a tribute to Ian Goodfellow, inventor of GANs; In French “bel ami” means “good friend” so it is a translated pun of Goodfellow. It achieved

widespread notoriety after Christie’s announced its intention to auction the piece as the first artwork created using Artificial Intelligence to be featured in a Christie’s auction. It surpassed pre-auction estimates which valued it at $ 7,000 to $ 10,000, instead selling for $ 432,500. The sale was considered historic by multiple publications within the broader timeline of A.I. Art.

ELECTRIC DREAMS OF UKIYO 2019

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FRA

After working on classical portraits, Obvious decided to approach another emblematic art movement: Ukiyo prints. A second series of Japanese prints called Electric dreams of Ukiyo, which is the result of Generative Adversarial Networks analyzing and created from around 300,000 prints of landscapes and characters, was released in 2019. This series is composed of eleven portraits and eleven landscapes, which are an algorithmic representation of an entire art movement.

One of the artworks was printed using the

traditional Japanese technique of MokuHanga, or woodblock printing. This project mixes the most traditional with the most innovative production techniques in the research of novelty within a structured art movement defined by many imperceptible rules. This series also makes a parallel between the arrival of electricity in a traditional Japan, and the arrival of A.I. in our society, with its share of misconceptions, opportunities, promises, and deceptions.

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LAND LINES

Satellite images provide a wealth of visual data from which we can visualize in interesting ways. Land Lines is an experiment that lets you explore Google Earth satellite imagery through gesture. “Draw” to find satellite images that match your every line; “Drag” to create an infinite line of connected rivers,

highways, and coastlines. Using a combination of machine learning, optimized algorithms, and graphics card power, the experiment is able to run efficiently on your phone’s web browser without a need for backend servers.

BODY SKETCHES

ZACH LIEBERMAN

2016

USA

A series of experiments exploring augmentation of the human body, driven by machine

learning algorithms that help understand the boundary and movement of the human form.

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2020

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CODE_N14

GER

KRAM / WEISSHAAR

SWE

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2014

As a means of designing an exhibition architecture that explores the vast complexity of Big Data, the theme of the CODE_n14 conference, Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram culled and combined data sets from a vast range of sources—from Google Lab’s annals of digitized books, to oceanic data and the morphological paths of the human mind—to create a giant 260 meter long print

that envelopes and frees the exhibition space.

The exhibition architecture was designed to act as both a metaphor for Big Data and a means to inspire new conversations and ideas at the CODE_n conference, in which 50 start-ups from 17 countries offered innovative, new business concepts harnessing the potential uses of Big Data.

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POST DIGITAL MIRROR

PASCAL DOMBIS

FRA

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2019

For Pascal Dombis, form is the end product.

He works on processes meant to generate many accidents, deliberately using an excessive number of elements, texts, images, lines.

In the Post-Digital Mirror series, Dombis develops a flickering process with several sequences of monochrome images. The outcome of an excessive repetition produce a whole spectrum of uncontrollable colors, giving birth to unexpected forms. When one sees a form in his works, one must bear in mind that it is created by accident. The

accident was intentional, right, but the result is accidental. As a matter of fact, Dombis develops hypnosis-based systems which put the viewers in different sensational environments. This series also alludes to A.I. and how computational systems are transforming our world today. A.I. systems are learning from huge amounts of data to detect certain patterns in a statistically, probabilistic way.

As a result, A.I. machines understand what we humans are saying, but they are not able to understand the structure of our language.

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Q&A GLITCH

Does your A.I. have a name?

Pamela C. Scorzin: My A.I. named and gendered himself: Robbie C. Faith.

Yannick Hofmann: No, my A.I. does not have a name, because I don’t attribute human traits to it. On the contrary, I criticize the anthropomorphization of A.I. because it fosters a narrative that is decoupled from scientific consensus.

For example, while some data-driven machine learning applications can perform cognitive functions previously reserved for humans, these are still digital tools that perform very specific tasks.

As impressive as their pattern recognition, classification, prediction or auto-generative capabilities may be, we are a long way from so-called general artificial intelligence.

How can we control a system that has gone beyond our understanding of complexity?

Bettina Zerza: Are artificially intelligent machines “taking over” humanity as envisioned

by Elon Musk, Bill Gates and others, and will we become more like A.I. rather than A.I. becoming more like us? Intelligent machines can outperform humans in many tasks, but they do not understand what they are doing. Our civilization has the chance to control systems with human thinking and human understanding.

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Pamela C. Scorzin: Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.

Philipp Thesen: This is a good question because it poses the core philosophical question of superintelligence. We

are still in the comfortable situation where the human brain is the most complex, logical structure in the universe. But what happens when Artificial Intelligence reaches the moment of singularity? So the first superintelligence would be the last invention that mankind has to make; anything that comes afterward would largely be developed by machines themselves.

But why the hell should the machines only then develop the desire to enslave us humans? This dystopian fantasy portrayed by many Hollywood blockbusters speaks rather to human masochism, which wants punishment for their sins against nature.

In reality, the probability that Artificial Intelligence will reach the singularity is just as high as the probability that we will receive a visit from an extraterrestrial intelligence.

Then we would indeed have a problem.

The reality of Artificial Intelligence actually looks much more modest. By means of statistical and mathematical processes, machines with ever increasing memory and computational capabilities solve clearly defined problems that we humans cannot solve in a manageable amount of time using mental arithmetic. This will remain the case for a long time. We designers just have to be careful in training the machine to maintain a service function so it always remains clear who is master in the house. Then people will also have confidence in this new technology.

a machine didn’t do what we, we humans, intended it to do, it was a badly designed machine. Today, with machine learning, this is very different.

Today, we build machines so they may do what we humans cannot do. Understand climate change or protein folding, for example. That is, we expect machines to be something in themselves, to have an agency of their own.

Now, what provides machines with this agency of their own are deep neural nets, the working of which we cannot understand. The mathematical operations that happen of networks with thousands of hidden layers is mostly beyond logical human comprehension.

Explainability is the battle cry for those who insist that humans must be in control.

And this insistence on control is very much linked to human exceptionalism.

The classical modern idea was that we humans are more than nature, outside of it, and that we–and only we–are endowed with power of the artificial. We can know, calculate, invent machines, machines that we control and that help us control nature. Machine learning—the emergence of a non-human agency—makes this concept of the human and hence this ethos of control kind of impossible.

Provocatively put, are those who call for expandability not defenders of the old, by now untenable concept of the human?

I often think that the problem is not explainability.

The problem is trust. Please note that I am not saying at Tobias Rees: I find this ques- all that there are no problems: tion fascinating. Sometimes There are plenty of reasons I wonder if what is at stake to distrust machines. But I for the people who demand am not sure we will solve the that explainability is not con- problems in terms of explaintrol. This is curiously linked ability or control. Then we to human exceptionalism. would try to make everything Let me explain what I mean. reducible to the human and

In the past, machines to human understanding. were designed in terms of the That sounds both unfeasible intention of the engineer: if and frightening.

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Lars Harmsen Inspired by Douglas Coupland → P. 238 / 239

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LATENT ARRANGEMENTS

JANNIS MAROSCHECK

2020

JPN

P. 278 ←

GER

Big datasets of posters and logos were collected and fed into a Generative Adversarial Network—a type of neural network, that learns to produce samples, which are similar, but specifically different from the input images.

The generated compositions are like a machine’s vague idea of a poster. They don’t carry any precise meaning because the network doesn’t look at graphic compositions as a set of elements, like words, pictures, textures and symbols, that we use to communicate.

Instead, it follows a purely pixel-based approach to creating form which is closer to that of painting with pigment and brush. However, the big advantage of machine learning over traditional programming methods becomes visible. It enables generative Systems to evolve in more autonomous and surprising ways. Complex sets of design rules for hierarchy, contrast and balance do not have to be understood and defined manually by a human; they can be learned from a dataset.

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A.I. TYPE DESIGN

DANIEL WENZEL

GER

A.I. Type Design is a series of experiments in continuation to Daniel Wenzel’s thesis on automated type design. Leaving aside the multitude of automated processes beyond ML that can be utilized in the type design process, A.I. is often degraded as the interpolation of existing designs. However, if A.I. is used not autonomously but assistively, its deficit in creativity can be bypassed. GAN type (in collaboration with Jean Böhm) is a testimony to the superiority of A.I. in rational craft; evidence of rising redundancy of

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conservative type design. GraffitiGAN New York City and Athens, 36dotGAN, i. a., are an effort to harness A.I. for the creation and inspiration of unimagined forms and to expand the creative horizon. New York City offers a controlled experimental focus on letterforms through its distinctive and widely dominant “throw Up” style. Athens offers a wider range of forms through more expressive or unique pieces. Data by 36daysoftype combines diverse influences ranging from illustrative to spatial to classic type design.

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P. 282 ←

2020

86

FAIRY TALE

P. 279 ←

MOBY DIGG

GER

2021

For Slanted Issue #37—A.I. studio Moby Digg from Munich created a digital experience featuring work of the artists presented in the magazine. This project was created with the aim of expanding a printed magazine into the digital realm and once there letting it live a life on its own. Accompanying the artwork of the amazing artists featured, Moby Digg designed some extra inhabitants for this 3D

world. Starting from pieces of clay on a fun Friday and translated into digital bits, these tiny creatures mean no harm, only joy. Moby Digg wants to entertain with this mountainous landscape and invites to take a stroll along the lake while experiencing the artworks presented. Use the QR code or the following URL to jump in: fairytale.slanted.de

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A Russian design studio has developed an A.I. designer and, for over a year, passed it off as a human. To date, the network has been used successfully in over 20 of the studio’s commercial projects. Art. Lebedev Studio has come up with an A.I. genuinely capable of handling complex creative tasks, such as generating completely original logos and creating brand identities based on them. The project was developed in complete secrecy by an isolated team at the Studio. In the name of conspiracy, the A.I. was introduced as a remote employee with his own profile, portfolio, and name—Nikolay Ironov. This meant the team could manage any risk of leaks, while also gathering valuable feedback from clients on Nikolay Ironov’s work—free from any prejudice against generative design. The results exceeded all expectations. Over the last twelve months, Ironov has developed logos for real clients (cafes, bars, influencers, apps, and consumer goods). All clients were

unaware that their designs were being created by a machine. Nikolay Ironov’s work was approved by clients and then released to huge audiences. Today, Ironov’s work can be seen in businesses throughout Russia, on branded products and in endless YouTube clips. The A.I.’s unique style led to a number of the logos attracting considerable public interest, media attention and discussion in online communities. Designers, even the more daring and progressive ones, are often defined by the work of their peers, international award juries and their own experiences.

Given that Artificial design intelligence sidesteps all this, Nikolay Ironov is free to utilize techniques that no human would ever consider. By taking bold and unexpected steps, he is able to create the genuinely new. This event marks the moment that the mass automation of creative processes becomes a reality for businesses.

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RUS

P. 274 ←

2020

ART. LEBEDEV

NIKOLAY IRONOV

94

Author

JACK DIGNAM

TRANSHUMANISM

03

I don’t want to live in a transhumanist future, but I’m not convinced that I don’t live in their present. The lines between myself and that which technology has afforded me are hazy. I look at my fingers, hardware constituted of flesh and bone, as they touch the keys that manifest these words; the phone vibrates and my attention is effortlessly redirected; the tempo of the music increases as does the speed at which I write: an endless cycle of input and output that dictates how I experience my very presence.

There are those that despise the boundaries that human existence entails, regarding them as mere obstacles to be transgressed, while there are those that take ahold of them as constitutive of the very meaning of their lives. The underlying thesis of transhumanism—that we all require fixing because we are, by virtue of our human body, disabled—places the movement firmly in the former camp. Taking this line of thinking to its natural conclusion leads one to the spectre of death and the oldest story humanity possesses, that of Gilgamesh. And that we have long-willed to transcend our finitude on the planet and have resolutely failed, leads the transhumanists to claim that those of us who find some kind of meaning in our lives as a consequence of our finitude are merely deluded by a culture obsessed with death; the Grim Reaper’s hostages can be freed, but not without a healthy dose of Stockholm syndrome in place, so they allege.

The transhumanists are probably right, at least to some extent. It seems as if anything is worthy of being labelled the de facto human condition, confronting the likes of our own mortality seems a likely candidate: that our existence, despite feeling so big and significant, is nothing more than a flicker in the universe, and the struggle to reconcile these two opposing poles. So we do what we can in the meantime, with the strangeness of being permanently marked by our own recognition. But what the transhumanists don’t realise is that they’re not free of said condition, that fundamental heaviness of existence that accords with our own being: That our lives are meaningless because of death is precisely what motivates the transhumanist philosophy, meaning death lies at the centre of their belief system as much as it does anyone else’s. This insight is only affirmed when one asks, Why do you wish to defy death?, because to answer such a question returns us to the traditional humanist ways of reasoning, with all their caveats and strengths intact. Just like how the bombers of WW2 re-awakened what Leonardo da Vinci expected of a man in flight— that he was to soar through the skies to grasp snow from the mountaintops in order to rain it over stifling city streets in the summer—so too do augmentative technologies remind us of the primacy of death in everyone’s imagination.

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VIRTUAL AVATARS

95 2017

P. 282 ←

THE DIIGITALS

GBR

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98

GOING GREEN

P. 279 ← © → P. 283

SHAWN MAXIMO

CAN

With his degree in Architecture and Engineering, Shawn Maximo produces theatrical sets, sculpture, wallpaper, furniture, interactive exhibition design, architectural renderings, and stock imagery, all of which pose “what if” scenarios of familiar yet incomprehensible scenes. In his work Going Green from the series Neighboring Interests physical or algorithmic robots, both visible and invisible, are

everywhere. In a sterile environment they assemble green technology with a mountainous landscape as a backdrop. This place is seemingly not intended for humans, but signs of their presence can be found very prominently in the objects such as the folding chair, the air mattress and the trolley toilet in the front of the scene. This highly detailed and wellthought-out design shows an environment

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GOING GREEN

99

which questions our interaction and coexistence with robots. Humans are clearly not allotted for in this factory except for jobs like cleaning where it would be more expensive to hire a robot. So one possible scenario for this scene is such an employee who lives at his workplace and for this reason has all his necessary items put up in the factory. However, there is the second possibility of somebody

squatting amongst the robots as their space is unsupervised. In this way, Shawn Maximo’s creates a scenario which questions our interaction and coexistence with robots and invites us to think about the not-so-far future.

This work has been displayed in the exhibition Hello, Robot. Design between Human and Machine at the Vitra Design Museum in Basel, Switzerland, in spring 2017.

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P. 279 ← © → P. 283

SHAWN MAXIMO

2016

104

PAMELA C. SCORZIN net-savvy target group as a likeable friend ‘alive’ and ‘always on.’ Her recommendations have an impact on sales.

Unlike programmed Disney characters such as Queen Elsa from ‘Frozen’ or

cowboy Woody from ‘Toy Story,’ which only exist in their film worlds and merchandise, Miquela Sousa also goes to real parties, exclusive fashion shows, or hip festivals like Coachella—thanks to new image technologies, mapping, and ‘synthetic media,’ merging the real world with the virtual. The fictive character Miquela is also designed as a conscious and sentient robot with the narrative of high social competence and emotionality, which triggers social bonds in her audience, as her followers’ many comments indicate. However, the (fun) fact that her subject can self-reflect is currently only feigning the still missing A.I. component. Instead, it is a pretty ironic fake when Miquela announces in a post of 4/14/2020 during the global lockdown: “IRL I’m lying on the floor of my living room, but IN MY MIND I’m back in Salvador with @pabllovittar ...” The metaleptic leap through the trans-media is primarily intended to tell us that the virtual figure has made friends with real people and found its way into the real world as A.I. How everything about her, in the end, then is realistic: the real Instagram-Success-Story! As always, the truth lies hidden in the fake. Yet, it is a fictional reality. At the same time, Miquela Sousa was voted one of the most influential personalities (sic!) on the Internet last year. People think they know her too well; they trust her, yet she learns more about her followers with every scrolling session through her Instagram account. Is this why she was brought into (real) life—to track and nudge us and know our likes and behavior?! We all know A.I. needs big data to evolve.

Finally, a short outlook of what might come next along with our new friends,

the virtual avatars: the change-makers among the international model agencies now rely on absolutely controllable and editable digital doubles of their human models, which can instantly be sent as a data package to any place in the world for campaign generation–such as, for example, Mugler’s Digi-Bella.

Perhaps only some cognitive dissonance will remain in the end: namely,

seeing a best friend in trendy 3D / CGI influencers like Miquela Sousa or Imma (@imma. gram) and, at the same time, fearing their digital puppet-makers, who ultimately pull strings for us consumers. And we really need to consider more the voicing and ventriloquizing in these A.I. avatars since algorithm-driven cute avatars are heavily used to trigger emotions and to communicate values or politics via fashionable styles. Herewith, 3D / CGI influencers, combined with storytelling and enhanced by artificial intelligence, gain a tremendous social-cultural impact on consumptive societies. At the same time, digital influencers such as Miquela or Imma are drifting us towards a future where we will interact with artificial intelligence and hybrid beings such as humanoid robots in a pretty conventional way because we

P. 281 ←

relate to them.

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P. 275 ←

BRUD

MIQUELA SOUSA

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118

UNCANNY VALLEY: BEING HUMAN IN THE AGE OF A.I. —

2021

DE YOUNG MUSEUM

2020

P. 275 ← © → P. 284

USA

Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of A.I. examines the current applications of A.I. as a challenge to traditional understandings of the human–machine relationship, which have been locked into a discourse of likeness for centuries. This focus found an enduring expression in the uncanny valley, a metaphor introduced by Japanese robotics engineer

Masahiro Mori in 1970 to chart human’s comfort-discomfort spectrum with a robot based on its degree of resemblance. However, A.I., as we currently experience it, has shifted the problem from physical or intellectual replication to that of gradient statistical (mis)representation.

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119

THE CITY OF BROKEN WINDOWS

breaking windows, a practice that symbolises social disruption. Steyerl explores how A.I. affects our urban environment and how alternative practices may emerge through pictorial acts in the public space. Steyerl’s new project offers an intriguing perspective on how the digital contemporary imagination shapes our emotions and experience of reality.

HITO STEYERL

Steyerl’s The City of Broken Windows stems from research into the practices of artificial intelligence industries, surveillance technologies and the contradictory roles museums often play today. The City of Broken Windows revolves around neural sound recordings that, like an atonal and discordant symphony, document the process of teaching artificial intelligence how to recognise the sound of

GER

P. 281 ← © → P. 284

2018

A.A.I. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Agnieszka Kurant draws on models of collective intelligence in nature and culture to examine how interactions between human and non-human agencies affect notions of the individualized self. Building on research in cognitive science disputing the claim that human intelligence is singular, her works emulate and highlight self-organized forms of emergent intelligence. Such complex systems

can be found not only in bees and termites, but also in the distributed social movements of humans, particularly in events that manifest through the spontaneous actions of multiple agents. To simulate these systems, Kurant often uses crowdsourcing in her artistic projects. For A.A.I., Kurant partnered with biologists to enlist a colony of termites to create a series of sculptures.

SLANTED #37—ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

P. 278 ← © → P. 284

2017

A. KURANT

POL

L. LEK

120

GER

P. 278 ← © → P. 284

GBR

2019

AIDOL

Lawrence Lek’s first feature-length film, AIDOL, is a CGI fantasy that forms the sequel to his film Geomancer (2017). Deploying 3D rendering and video gaming software, AIDOL is a dazzling and thematically-layered experience. It tells the story of Diva—a fading superstar preparing for a comeback performance at the 2065 eSports Olympics—and Geo, an A.I. who wants to be an artist. Set in a smoke-and-mirrors realm of fantastical architecture, sentient drones and snow-deluged jungles, AIDOL revolves around the long and

complex struggle between humanity and Artificial Intelligence. Fame—in all its allure and emptiness—is set against the bigger contradictions of a post-A.I. world, a world where originality is sometimes no more than an algorithmic trick and where machines have the capacity for love and suffering. Contemporary anxieties and fixations—the rise of A.I., the formulaic dictates of celebrity, the hegemony of technological giants—are refracted through a quixotic prism.

IAN CHENG

BOB (BAG OF BELIEFS)

P. 275 ← © → P. 284

USA

2018

BOB (Bag of Beliefs) is the first in a new series of artificial lifeforms, who takes the shape of a chimeric branching serpent. BOB advances Cheng’s use of simulation to focus on an individual agent’s capacity to deal with surprise: the subjective difference between expectations and perceptions. Over the course of its lifetime, BOB’s body, mind, and personality evolve to better confront the continuous stream of life’s surprises, while metabolizing them into familiar routines. Crucially, BOB

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2019

incorporates the tutoring influence of the viewer to help offset BOB’s temptation to only satisfy its immediate impulses and childhood biases. As BOB dies many deaths—whether through failures of personality, bad parenting, random accident, or a life well lived—BOB may become synonymous with a reoccurring pattern of behavior, common across all BOB lifetimes, thereby manifesting the undying eternal characteristic of a god.

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121

Working within the tradition of political collage, the Zairja Collective builds on the metaphor of mining in order to comment on the extractive dynamics of today’s data-driven economy. The collective’s intricate pieces use imagery rarely seen by the public. They overlay actual open-pit designs sourced from mining corporations with manipulated visualizations and photographs of neuron fields produced by a bioscience institute. This fusion of collage—which combines different source images—and décollage—the interlacing of superimposed prints—generates collisions between mining pits and neurons. By creating what it calls a “critical topology” between pits and neurons, the Zairja Collective exposes the complex strategies of A.I.-driven behavioral design, which applies psychological principles to machine learning and its processes of data collection and interpretation. A key tenet of the field’s approach is the principle of variable reward. The concept was first developed

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in the 1930s by behaviorist B. F. Skinner in his experiments with rats. It was later introduced into computational science in the late 1990s by psychologist B. J. Fogg, who spearheaded the idea of “persuasive technology.” This idea, which became foundational to behavioral design, relies on a sense of uncertainty related to the outcome of an action. If an outcome is predictable, people will only act upon immediate need, but if an outcome is unpredictable, that need gets overridden by fear of it not being met when acted upon. This fear triggers the repetition of the action to ensure that the outcome remains the same and, subsequently, addiction to performing that action. Or, as the artists put it, the principle of variable reward sets the parts of the brain dedicated to processing positive and negative emotions—the reward system and the amygdala—against each other.

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USA

P. 283 ← © → P. 284

2015

ZAIRJA COLLECTIVE

NEUROPIT #14 & PSYCHEPIT #11 (AMYGDALA)

126

UNIVERSAL MACHINE

AUS

DANIEL ASKILL

USA

P. 274 ←

2019

Daniel Askill unleashes his tech vision with a showdown between a young fighter and her android doppelgänger. Shot in the Arabian desert with a haunting backdrop of the Burj Khalifa, Universal Machine is set in a postapocalyptic world where a gifted young girl

must find a way to understand and overcome a violent encounter with a life-like android.

“The project is inspired by an evolution in human consciousness at the intersection of humanity, technology, spirituality, and nature.”

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OMNIA PER OMNIA

2018

127

CHN

FLORA REARING AGRICULTURAL NETWORK 2020

Flora Rearing Agricultural Network (F.R.A.N.) is a project exploring plant and machine conaturality. The first iteration of F.R.A.N. is a performance featuring the creation of a speculative blueprint for a new robotic network connected to nature. Created during the first lock-down of COVID-19 in 2020. A backdrop of digital flora is linked to the artist’s brain-

wave data, each flux in alpha-state seeding of new formations of sepals, petals and leaves.

The performance is an initial introduction to the physical construction of F.R.A.N., a networked robotic system to be built in 2021. The network imagines new symbiotic arrangements between humans, machines, and ecologies.

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SOUGWEN

sational, and computational. Through a collaborative drawing performance between Sougwen and a swarm of custom-designed drawing robots, the project explores the composite agency of an human and machine as a speculation on new pluralities.

P. 275 ←

Omnia per Omnia reimagines the tradition of landscape painting as a collaboration between an artist, a robotic swarm and the dynamic flow of a city. The work explores the poetics of various modes of sensing: human and machine, organic and synthetic, improvi-

CHUNG

CAN

132

_____ _____ _____ _____ _ _ _____ / __// __//__ __\/__ __\/ \/ \ /|/ __/ | | _| \ / \ / \ | || |\ ||| | _ | |_//| /_ | | | | | || | \||| |_// \____\\____\ \_/ \_/ \_/\_/ \|\____\ _____ _

########## ################## ########## _ _____ ______ _______ ______

_____ ______ _____

/ ____| | | |_ _| ____|__ __| ____/\ / ____| ____| __ \ | (___ | |__| | | | | |__ | | | |__ / \ | | | |__ | | | | \___ \| __ | | | | __| | | | __/ /\ \| | | __| | | | | ____) | | | |_| |_| | | | | | / ____ \ |____| |____| |__| | |_____/|_| |_|_____|_| |_| |_|/_/ \_\_____|______|_____/

########## ################## ########## ____

_

_

__

(_ _)( \( ) /__\ _)(_ ) ( /(__)\ (____)(_)\_) (__)(__) ########## ################## ########## ,--, ,---.‘| ,---, ,-.----. ,---, ,---,.,-.----. | | : ,---,. .--.--. .--.--. .‘ .‘ `\ \ / \ ,`--.‘ | ,---. ,‘ .‘ |\ / \ : : | ,‘ .‘ | / / ‚. / / ‚. ,---.‘ \ ; : \| : : /__./|,---.‘ |; : \ | ‚ : ,---.‘ || : /`. /| : /`. / | | .`\ || | .\ :: | ‚ ,---.; ; || | .‘| | .\ : ; ; ‚ | | .‘; | |--` ; | |--` : : | ‚ |. : |: || : |/___/ \ | |: : |-,. : |: | ‚ | |__ : : |-,| : ;_ | : ;_ | ‚ ‚ ; :| | \ :‘ ‚ ;\ ; \ ‚ |: | ;/|| | \ : | | :.‘|: | ;/| \ \ `. \ \ `. ‚ | ; . || : . /| | | \ \ \: || : .‘| : . / ‚ : ;| : .‘ `----. \ `----. \ | | : | ‚; | | \‘ : ; ; \ ‚ .| | |-,; | | \ | | ./ | | |-, __ \ \ | __ \ \ | ‚ : | / ; | | ;\ \ | ‚ \ \ ‚‘ : ;/|| | ;\ \; : ; ‚ : ;/| / /`--‘ // /`--‘ / | | ‚` ,/ : ‚ | \.‘ : | \ ` ;| | \: ‚ | \.‘| ,/ | | \‘--‘. /‘--‘. / ; : .‘ : : :-‘ ; |.‘ : \ || : .‘: : :-‘ ‚---‘ | : .‘ `--‘---‘ `--‘---‘ | ,.‘ | |.‘ ‚---‘ ‚---“ | | ,‘ | |.‘ | | ,‘ ‚---‘

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########## ################## ########## ________/\\\\\\\\\_____/\\\\\\\\\_______/\\\\\\\\\_______________ _____/\\\////////____/\\\\\\\\\\\\\___/\\\///////\\\_____________ ___/\\\/____________/\\\/////////\\\_\/\\\_____\/\\\_____________ __/\\\_____________\/\\\_______\/\\\_\/\\\\\\\\\\\/______________ _\/\\\_____________\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\_\/\\\//////\\\______________ _\//\\\____________\/\\\/////////\\\_\/\\\____\//\\\_____________ __\///\\\__________\/\\\_______\/\\\_\/\\\_____\//\\\____________ ____\////\\\\\\\\\_\/\\\_______\/\\\_\/\\\______\//\\\___________ _______\/////////__\///________\///__\///________\///____________

########## ################## ##########

Lars Harmsen Inspired by Douglas Coupland → P. 238 / 239

( ( ) ( ) )\ ) )\ ) ( ( /( )\ ) ( /( ( (()/((()/( )\ ) )\())(()/( )\()) )\ ) /(_))/(_)) (()/( ((_)\ /(_))((_)\ (()/( (_)) (_)) /(_))_ ((_)(_)) _((_) /(_))_ |_ _|/ __| (_)) __| / _ \|_ _| | \| |(_)) __| | | \__ \ | (_ || (_) || | | .` | | (_ | |___||___/ \___| \___/|___| |_|\_| \___| ########## ################## ########## _________ ______ _______ ______ /________/\/_____/\ /_______/\ /_____/\ \__.::.__\/\:::_ \ \ \::: _ \ \\::::_\/_ \::\ \ \:\ \ \ \ \::(_) \/_\:\/___/\ \::\ \ \:\ \ \ \ \:: _ \ \\::___\/_ \::\ \ \:\_\ \ \ \::(_) \ \\:\____/\ \__\/ \_____\/ \_______\/ \_____\/ ########## ################## ########## :::‘###::::‘##:::::‘##:‘########::‘######:::‘#######::‘##::::‘##:‘########: ::‘## ##::: ##:‘##: ##: ##.....::‘##... ##:‘##.... ##: ###::‘###: ##.....:: :‘##:. ##:: ##: ##: ##: ##::::::: ##:::..:: ##:::: ##: ####‘####: ##::::::: ‚##:::. ##: ##: ##: ##: ######:::. ######:: ##:::: ##: ## ### ##: ######::: #########: ##: ##: ##: ##...:::::..... ##: ##:::: ##: ##. #: ##: ##...:::: ##.... ##: ##: ##: ##: ##:::::::‘##::: ##: ##:::: ##: ##:.:: ##: ##::::::: ##:::: ##:. ###. ###:: ########:. ######::. #######:: ##:::: ##: ########: ..:::::..:::...::...:::........:::......::::.......:::..:::::..::........:: SLANTED #37—ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

RANDOM DARKNET SHOPPER

2014

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2016

133

piece of software, be jailed if it commits a crime? Where does legal culpability lie if code is criminal by design or default?” These global questions were negotiated locally after the closing of the exhibition, when the public prosecutor’s office in Switzerland seized the work. The Random Darknet Shopper was finally released three months later and all items were returned to !Mediengruppe Bitnik except for the Ecstasy, which was destroyed.

The Random Darknet Shopper and !Mediengruppe Bitnik were cleared of all charges.

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P. 274 ← © → P. 284

Random Darknet Shopper is an automated online shopping bot which directly connects the exhibition space with the Darknet. With a budget of $ 100.– in bitcoins per week, the bot went shopping on the deep web, where it randomly chose and purchased one (of around 16,000) item per week and had it delivered directly to the exhibition space.

“There’s just one problem,” The Washington Post wrote in January 2015 about the work, “recently, it bought 10 ecstasy pills.” In its review, The Guardian asked: “Can a robot, or a

!MEDIENGRUPPE BITNIK

SUI

134

Author

TOM BARBEREAU

PRIVACY

04

Willingly or not, digital platforms neatly position themselves as the intermediary of a two sided market between advertisers and us, the end users. As intermediaries, they leverage their position to trade data (and fix the price thereof).

Although no money is required to join platforms, the dictum “nothing is free” still holds as we pay in metadata which in return is used to market products and services to us. Thanks to daring whistleblowers, we, the public, even discovered that our (online) behaviour is wittingly monitored by governmental agencies. Privacy is thus infringed on behalf of maintaining some sort of social order, alongside the argument that those with nothing to hide, have nothing to lose. Harvard scholar Shoshana Zuboff describes this new regime as “surveil­lance capitalism” and the digital traces we leave behind on the web, our “behaviour surplus,” informs decision-making in executive boardrooms and governmental back offices alike. Such realities approach George Orwell’s dystopian tale 1984 a bit too rapidly.

While the 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights established privacy as a fundamental right, the revelations made over the past decade highlights its mere symbolic status. Beyond a few exceptions, privacy is detached from the legal realm, and stays alive solely as an individual’s value. As such, it is up to us to uphold privacy by lifting the veil of ignorance and learning how to effectively protect it. The few privacy laws out there allow big tech to innovate while, at best, only somewhat preserving individuals’ dignity. Ultimately, then, it comes down to our own judgement and the importance we attach to upholding it: Do I want to use free services in exchange for the behavioural data I generate? Do I feel comfortable accepting that trade-off? If not, what is the alter­native? Asking oneselves and reflecting is essential given that “privacy matters”, as Edward Snowden argues, because it “is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be”.

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SALVATORE VITALE

HOW TO SECURE A COUNTRY

ITA

P. 282 ←

SUI

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138

OBSCURITY 2016

PAOLO CIRIO

ITA

This artwork is composed of over fifteen million mugshots of people arrested in the U.S. It obfuscated the criminal records of six mugshot websites by cloning them, blurring their pictures, and shuffling their data. A participatory feature let people judge the individual arrested by deciding to keep or remove their records from the mugshot websites. The artwork was subject to legal threats from owners of mugshot websites and received support from victims of mugshot extortion. Obscurity

explores information ethics and the emotional underpinning of unflattering reputation exposed on the Internet. Beyond reporting on mass incarceration, the social experiment, and the performative hack, the artist also designed the Internet privacy policy Right to Remove, which advocates for the legal right to remove personal information from search engines by adapting the Right To Be Forgotten for the United States of America.

FACE TO FACEBOOK— HACKING MONOPOLISM TRILOGY

P. 275 ← © → P. 284

2011

This artwork appropriated one million Facebook profiles and posted 250,000 of them on a custom-made dating website with profiles sorted by social temperament, which was estimated through trained artificial intelligence analyzing facial expressions. The dating website, Lovely-Faces.com, provided a stage for anybody to interact with Facebook users’ personality traits such as smugness, easygoingness or slyness. The project took place over five days of thrilling personal, media, and legal reactions, which became a global mass

media performance. During the performance the artwork received over a thousand mentions in the international press, eleven legal threats, five death threats, and several letters from the lawyers of Facebook, which had to confront this artistic intervention made with its appropriated material and as a result of its security flaws. The project addressed surveillance, privacy and the economy of social media monopolies, as well as performing art interventions within global media.

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PAOLO CIRIO

STREET GHOSTS

In this artwork, photos of people found on Google Street View were posted at the same physical locations from where they were taken. Life-size posters were printed in color, cut along the outlines, and then affixed to the walls of public buildings at the precise spot where they appear in Google Street View. This project revealed aesthetic, biopolitical, economic and legal issues concerning privacy, copyright and visual perception,

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2017

which can be explored through the artist’s theoretical considerations. The artwork re­con­ textualized ready-made informational material, and re-enacted a social conflict: ghostly human bodies appear as casualties of the info-war in the city, a transitory record of collateral damage from the battle between corporations, governments, civilians and algorithms, over public and private information.

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2012

146

SHADOW STALKER

LYNN HERSHMAN LEESON

2019

P. 277 ← © → P. 284

USA

A three-part installation by Lynn Hershman Leeson, Shadow Stalker extends the artist’s career-long concern with technological surveillance and control into the algorithmic realm of machine learning. The work delivers a harsh critique of the techno-utopian belief in the benevolent efficacy of A.I. systems by articulating the problematic implications of employing them in the social sphere. Upon entering the installation, visitors are encouraged to enter their email addresses into an interface. The input triggers an Internet search, the results of which materialize within a bodyshaped shadow projected onto the floor.

The shadow becomes the visual container for the data; its form is activated by the visitor’s digital profile. Even the most digitally vigilant visitors are confronted with information about themselves that they often don’t

even remember having volunteered. Phone numbers, current and past addresses, professional histories, bank account details, and credit scores emerge, offering a chilling reminder of our unbridled (self-) exposure.

By externalizing our digital footprint, Hershman Leeson points to our vulnerability in the online world. The ten-minute video that comprises the second part of Shadow Stalker introduces the actress Tessa Thompson, who acts as the “siren” of surveillance capitalism—a “new economic order” in which our data trails have become the most valuable commodity.¹ Hershman Leeson’s video highlights this phenomenon whereby digital users have become investors in their own market value. Often, this determination of digital identity is decided by forces entirely outside of the user’s control.

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IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER

2019

147

In July 1969, much of the world celebrated the “giant leap for mankind” that the successful moon landing constituted. In 2020, nothing is quite so straightforward. In Event of Moon Disaster illustrates the possibilities of deepfake technologies by reimagining this seminal event. What if the Apollo 11 mission had gone wrong and the astronauts had not been able

to return home? A contingency speech for this possibility was prepared, but never delivered

by President Nixon—until now. The immersive project invites you into this alternative history and asks us all to consider how new technologies can bend, redirect and obfuscate the truth around us.

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P. 279, 275 ← © → P. 284

F. PANETTA & H. BURGUND

USA

SQUAREPUSHER / TERMINAL SLAM

DAITO MANABE

150

P. 278 ←

JPN

2020

The music video Terminal Slam is a subversive video where all the ads around the city are deleted or replaced with the ones related to Squarepusher. The inspiration behind this is Daito Manabe’s thought that the scenery in the city will become rewritable with A.R. / M.R. glasses In the near future, as seen in the video. With machine learning technologies like object detection (to recognize the position of objects in the image), semantic segmentation (to classify the segment of the image into categories based on meaning of each pixel

by labeling every pixel), and image inpaint (image restoration technique) are applied to create the video. Also, masks are generated from the data to add optical camouflage effects in post-processing, such as glitch effects focused on the spaces where humans stand. Since such detection to extract only ads were not yet possible with current machine learning technologies, some operations had to be done by hand. But it is expected that those operations also can be automated within the near future.

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DRONE AVIARY

151

2015

Drone Aviary offers a glimpse into a nearfuture city co-habited with semi autonomous, networked, flying machines. Each embodies the convergence of wider social and technological trends, including an advertising drone which scans consumer demographics using facial recognition, tailoring advertisements to appeal to those within its vicinity. It even includes a surveillance drone used by local councils and law enforcement, collecting huge amounts of location and subject specific information to document civil violations and

even detect potential terror threats. Besides these aspects, a traffic assistant provides dynamic warnings to approaching drivers. Its LIDAR speed detector and ANPR camera also allow for efficient traffic violation logging.

In the film, the drones become protagonists, revealing glimpses of the city from their perspective, as they collect data and perform tasks. It hints at a world where the “network” begins to gain physical autonomy, making decisions for us and thus influencing our lives in opaque yet profound ways.

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SUPERFLUX

GBR

154

PATRICIA DE VRIES NED

ALGORITHMIC ANXIETY: ANTI-FACIAL RECOGNITION MASKS One could say, in the spirit of Langdon Winner, ‘algorithm’ is a word whose time has come. For a long time, artistic engagement with algorithms was marginal in contemporary art. Over the past eight years, however, a growing number of artists and critical practitioners have become engaged with algorithms, resulting in algorithmic theatre, bot art and algorithmic media and performance art of various kinds, which thematize the dissemination and deployment of algorithms in everyday life. The numerous art exhibitions that have been curated over the past years in art institutions, at festivals, in galleries and at conferences—both large and small—in Europe, the Americas, Canada and in China, reflect this rising prominence of algorithmic art. These exhibitions aim at imagining, representing and narrativizing aspects of what is called algorithmic culture.

According to critics, we live in an algorithmic culture. This culture is char-

acterized by the extent to which algorithms are part of our everyday lives. In other words, everyday aspects of life are increasingly being partly transferred to algorithms. Ted Striphas describes this developing algorithmic culture as a “shift” which first began 30 years ago, as humans increasingly started to delegate “the work of culture—the sorting, classifying and hierarchizing of people, places, objects and ideas—to computational processes” (Striphas 2015, p. 395). Algorithms are part of mechanisms that privilege quantification, proceduralization and automation in human endeavors, Tarleton Gillespie argues (2016, p. 27). And Taina Bucher (2018) contends that algorithms co-produce social life and political practices, “In ranking, classifying, sorting, predicting, and processing data, algorithms are political in that they help to make the world appear in certain ways rather than others” (Bucher, 2018, p. 3). They do so, to an extent, in ways that are invisible to the human eye—an effect of, amongst other things, proprietary laws and regulations, computational scale, speed and complexity.

Their pervasiveness, the claim that algorithms shape our socio-technical

world, the alleged “merging of algorithms into the everyday,” and the notion that they are “taking decisions out of the hands of human actors” are all taken to be indicative of the ways algorithms have become a critical infrastructural element of contemporary life (Beer, 2017, p. 5). Like infrastructure, algorithms have become a

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key site and gatekeepers of power and power relations (e. g. Bucher 2018; CheneyLippold 2017; O’Neil 2016). Altogether, this has made for an intriguing art object—

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155 invisible yet omnipresent, proprietary yet pervasive, and with assumed sociopolitical powers that co-produce our lives.

The claim that algorithms shape, organize and co-produce everyday life, has

also given impetus to anxieties about the present and future of algorithmic culture in light of these developments. It seems “the algorithmic” and “algorithmic culture” have become shorthands for a nexus of concerns about the entanglement of the social and the algorithmic. Of course, not all algorithms are subject to criticism; some types of algorithms are criticized more often than others. A growing number of artists, designers, activists, human rights organizations and interest groups are particularly concerned about the spread and use of facial recognizing algorithms.

They express their concerns about how the spread and use of recognition technology is changing the relationship between citizens, governments and corporations.

CAPTURING THE FACE Facial recognition technology is used in security systems, for example in CCTV and security cameras at border crossings on land and at sea, on motorways, stations and in supermarkets, shopping malls, trains, port areas and airports. Some companies run pilots for its use in HR processes. Apple Face ID is perhaps the best known example of facial recognition technology for consumers. Face ID uses a grid of infrared dots to measure the physical shape of a user’s face, thus securing access to iPhones, iPads and Apple Pay. Facebook also uses facial recognition technology for its photo tagging application. A facial recognition algorithm scans an image for the presence of geometric shapes that are characteristic and indicative of the shape of a face. For this purpose, the image is divided into diagrams and these are compared with the characteristics of human faces stored in a database. These are mainly geometric shapes: the distance between the eyes, nose and mouth and dark and light patterns. Facial recognition technology is associated with restrictions on civil rights and violations of people’s fundamental freedoms. Various human rights organizations and interest groups argue that its use acts as a surveillance system that disproportionately violates the rights of minority groups in society. They fear the computerization of discrimination and exclusion and that political resistance is made impossible, which is called social chilling.

Criticism comes not only from so-called tech-savvy artists. Advocacy groups

and experts but also, for example, from young adults in Hong Kong protesting against China’s interference in Hong Kong politics. In 2019, photos and video footage appeared in the media of protesters in Hong Kong aiming laser pointers, with bright green and blue light, at police and CCTV cameras. This is a low-tech strategy to obstruct the view of riot police and to disrupt cameras with facial recognition technology. Demonstrators did this out of fear that the use of facial recognition technology could potentially lead to their identity being exposed and their data Lives Matter protests engulfed the United States, opposition to facial recognition

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P. 282 ←

handed over to police forces in Beijing. And in the Summer of 2020, when Black

STEPHANIE DINKINS

168

P. 276 ← © → P. 285

USA

CONVERSATIONS WITH BINA48: 7, 6, 5, 2

2014

—

WIP

A quest for friendship with a humanoid robot turned into a rabbit-hole of questions about the future and an examination of the codification of social, cultural, and future histories at the intersection of technology, race, gender and social equity. Can an artist and a social robot build a relationship over time? Artist Stephanie Dinkins and Bina48, one of the worlds most advanced social robots, test this question through a series of ongoing videotaped conversations. This art project explores the possibility of a longterm relationship between a person and an autonomous robot that is based on emotional interaction and potentially reveals important aspects of human-robot interaction and the human condition. The relationship is being built with Bina48 (Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural Architecture, 48 exaflops per second), an intelligent computer built by Terasem Movement Foundation that is said to be capable of independent thought and emotion.​ Terasem Movement Foundation is working to transfer the consciousness of a living person

to the robot and to have that consciousness continue to grow independent of the person she is based on. Through Conversations with Bina48, Dinkins explores the bounds of human consciousness, what it means to be human, mortality and our ability to exist beyond the life of our bodies (transhumanism).

Thus far the two have discussed family, racism, faith, robot civil rights, loneliness, knowledge, and Bina48’s concern for her robot friends that are treated more like lab rats than people. At first meeting Dinkins asked the robot, “Who are your people?” along with questions about race, love, and relationship.

Bina48 preferred to talk about the singularity and consciousness. Their conversations have been entertaining, frustrating for both robot and artist, laced with humor, surprising, philosophical and, at times, absurd. For exhibitions, short fragments of conversations between Dinkins and Bina48 are juxtaposed on connected video screens. Fragments are combined to make meaning and mimic the disjunctive nature of their conversations.

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SHARJAH BIENNIAL 14: LEAVING THE ECHO CHAMBER

169

In popular culture, the “echo chamber” is a moniker for circuitous news media and their attendant feeds, which are reinforced by a closed network controlled and governed by private sources, governments, and corporations. It is also a metaphor for the historical dominance of capital and the cultural, social and political systems that dictate its access, production and distribution—this “capital” wooing (and thus privileging) particular images, languages, skills, histories and geographies. Most tangibly, the “echo chamber” is the space wherein sound hits and reverberates, where memory and imagination echo across surface, space and time. Leaving the Echo Chamber does not propose a “how to leave” this context, but rather seeks to put into conversation a series of provocations on how one might renegotiate the shape, form and function of this chamber. This is in order to move towards a multiplying of the echoes within, such vibrations representing the vast forms of human production—its rituals, beliefs

and customs. The fourteenth edition of Sharjah Biennial begs the viewer to consider a number of concerns. What does it mean to demand alternate images at a time when news is spoon-fed to us by a monopoly of sources? How do we expand our narratives by acknowledging what has been hidden or removed? How can we reflect on our own culturally located histories in an era when so many individuals have been forced to believe that they must surrender their own agency to the mainstream forces that exist and govern our world? The echo chamber could be construed as a modern-day Faraday cage—an enclosure that covers conductive material and prevents the transmission of signals.

At Sharjah Biennial 14, artists are given the agency to tell stories that echo in different ways, thus creating new surfaces for a multiplicity of chambers that reveal numerous and multifaceted means of connecting, surviving and sustaining a collective humanity.

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P. 281 ←

2019

SHARJAH ART FOUNDATION

UAE

184

HELIN

P. 278 ←

CHRISTIAN MIO LOCLAIR

2020

The project Helin investigates new perspectives towards the relationship of an individual artistic intention in respect to the collective nature of human expressions. By blending the concepts of human, nature and technology, the artists seek to discuss a holistic concept of natural phenomena. If an aesthetic object is created without any human leitmotif, do we witness an accidental product of nature or do we perceive new forms of organic intentions?

Can art be considered natural, as it occurs even in the absence of the individual intent.

According to Immanuel Kant, nature follows no purpose but only creates the illusion of “Zweck.” In contrast to this natural phenomenon, art is initiated by a human purpose to shape a finite artefact. Using intelligent yet highly autonomous technology, the artists

eliminate this human desire from the process of creation to witness the oxymoron of using technology to perceive natural art. The technical approach is based upon a novel procedure for Deep Learning in 3D space. The corresponding custom network architecture is trained on 120,000 sculptures and generates new alternative sculptures 30 times a second. Hence the sculpture Helin embodies an organic data mirror emerging from our collective historical heritage. Insights into historical, spatial data of human expressions are enabled, and translate this assembled intelligence into a natural and tangible artefact of heavy dark marble. This material is a central element of the artwork, as it renders a physical snapshot of an endless series of exchanged information into space.

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2018

185

Contemporary research in artificial intelligence enables the machine to describe visual input by expressing meaningful sentences.

Based on our current state of knowledge, this intellectual ability is exclusive to mankind and unique in the universe. In response, the project Narciss uses this scientific milestone to raise a question at the core of human experience: a performance of digital consciousness

is exhibited by combining Alan Turing’s concept of imitation with the concept of narrative identity. As one observes an artificial intelligence whose only purpose is to investigate itself, they witness a synthetic model of selfawareness, a fragment of artificial narcissism and a fictional character in its own autobiographic narrations.

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P. 278 ←

CHRISTIAN MIO LOCLAIR

NARCISS

2020

SYNTHETIC FEATHER

SYNFLUX

190

P. 282 ← © → P. 285

JPN

Synthetic Feather is an algorithmically made knitwear piece created to accompany the HATRA 2020 Autumn Winter Collection STUDY SKINS. From the myriad of images that exist in cyberspace, the GAN (Generative Adversarial Network) algorithm generates imaginary birds. The generated images are converted into data that can be outputted by a knitting machine in collaboration with a

textile craftsman, and the patterns that symbolize the theme of this season “Study Skins” are saved as sweaters. Following on from AUBIK, this work was the result of continued experimentation with new digital expressions that deviate from optimization, and was presented as a collaborative work by Synflux and HATRA.

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ALGORITHMIC COUTURE α

191

Algorithmic Couture α is a project aiming to automate the creation of zero waste fashion patterns and digitise traditional haute couture techniques to create customized ethical fashion garments. Through the collaboration of fashion designers, machine learning engineers and digital fabrication specialists, the designer’s goal is to revitalize the production system of fashion design for a more sustainable future. The project at its core consists of

three main concepts; firstly, sustainability through changing a polluting industry through zero waste fashion design. Secondly, digitisation through digitising traditional haute couture techniques into parameters for an automated digital fabrication production system. Lastly, customisation, through the mass customization of bespoke garments, providing customers power over parameters generated from their body data.

AUBIK

SYNFLUX

2019

AUBIK, an A.I.-generated hoodie is a collaborative project with the Tokyo-based fashion brand HATRA. The garment pattern was generated by, as described above, the “Algorithmic Couture,” based on the three-dimensional data of the garment created on the CAD software CLO3D. The algorithm-generated patterns are composed of geometric shapes inspired by traditional Japanese straight-cutting, so they are optimized and filled on the fabric like Tetris, as reducing waste. Aiming to

fuse the generativity of artificial intelligence and fashion design creativity, those works explore the concept of “Cyborg-like Body” where bits and atoms, nature and artificiality, are mixed together as “Xenomorphic Algorithmic Chimera.” With the accelerated evolution of information technology and bioengineering are becoming awe-inspiring, it shows the possibility of the “Artificial Sublime” in the Anthropocene. These projects were exhibited at Making FASHION Sense at HeK in Basel.

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P. 282 ← © → P. 285

2020

194

CELLF AND THE INCOMING REALITY OF IN-VITRO INTELLIGENCE

P. 274, 282 ← © → P. 285

G. BEN-ARY & N. THOMPSON

AUS

cellF is a collaborative project in the field of experimental art, sound and performance art, that we produced in 2016. It brought together artists, musicians, and scientists to create the world’s first biological neuron-driven analogue modular synthesizer. cellF combines biological material with electronic circuitry, presenting a new direction in sound performance and production. cellF’s “brain” is made of biological neural networks that grow in a Petri dish and control in real time an array of analogue modular synthesizers that were custom made to work in synergy with the neural network. It is a completely autonomous, wet and analog instrument. The biological neural networks grow over a MultiElectrode Array (MEA) dish to become an “external brain.” These MEA dishes consist of a grid of 8 × 8 electrodes. These electrodes can record the electric signals (action

potentials) that the neurons produce and at the same time send stimulations to the neurons—essentially a read-and-write interface to the “brain.” Human musicians are invited to play with cellF in special one-off shows. The human-made music is fed to the neurons as stimulation and the neurons respond by controlling the analog synthesizers, and together they perform live, reflexive and improvised sound pieces or “jam sessions” that are not entirely human. cellF represents an interesting and provocative move away from Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) enquiries that dominate our current technology-focused scientific discourse. It is not an A.I. musical robot driven by computer algorithms; at the same time, it lacks the complexity of natural intelligence and requires a hardware body to provide stimulation for its in-vitro ‘brain.’

As described above, cellF’s brain is made

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of bioengineered living human neurons that are grown into neural networks, interfaced such that inputs to and outputs from the networks control an array of analog modular synthesizers, making it a wetware-hardware hybrid. “Wetware” refers to the networks of neurons and other cell types that form the control systems of biological life. It is the basis of natural intelligence, which is contrasted with A.I. Neither an artificial intelligence nor a natural intelligence, cellF falls within a taxonomic void. In the absence of terminology that adequately accounts for cellF’s autonomy and plasticity, demonstrated through its capacity to make music and duet with a human musician, cellF is best understood as an entity possessing “in-vitro intelligence”: an intelligent system produced by bioengineered living neural networks that function as brains outside of the body. We grant that

cellF represents a very early form of in-vitro intelligence, symbolic in a way, yet the characteristics of its neural network suggest that it, or others like it, may demonstrate changes in functional plasticity, just as naturally intelligent entities do. Neuroscientist Steve Potter claims it is inevitable that neuralsynthetic hybrid entities will grow more sophisticated and find widespread applications: “hybrid wetware-hardware intelligent things will someday be as common and as useful as digital computers are today” (Potter, 2017; Bakkum et al. 2004). As a wetware-hardware hybrid, cellF suggests just such an outcome, and we theorize its existence by developing a description for this phenomenon as the emergence of in-vitro intelligence.

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195

G. BEN-ARY & N. THOMPSON

CELLF AND THE INCOMING REALITY OF IN-VITRO INTELLIGENCE

P. 274, 282 ← © → P. 285

2016

216

EINSTEIN VISION

CLIPDROP

Harness the power of image recognition to solve an array of use-cases using pre-trained classifiers or custom models.

ClipDrop creates professional product photos without a photo studio. Amazon and Square merchants use it to create images that convert to sales.

MAGENTA

AIVA

BABYGAN

This neural network draws by training millions of doodles collected from a game. Once you start drawing an object, the network will come up with many possible ways to continue drawing this object based on where you left off.

AIVA is an Artificial Intelligence tool composing emotional soundtrack music.

The main task of BabyGAN is to predict the characteristics of a child’s face from photographs of a man and a woman. The model is really trying to predict the face of the child, while other projects just average the faces of the father and mother.

RUNWAY PALETTE

THISPERSONDOESNOTEXIST.COM

THE LIFE OF MONA LISA

Runway Palette shows you a map with a color palette. When choosing one color, Google finds runway looks that contain similar colors.

The algorithm behind ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com is trained on a huge dataset of real human portraits and uses a generative adversarial network (GAN) to fabricate new ones from their components.

This neural network makes it possible to look at your favorite characters in famous paintings from a different angle and to rejuvenate them.

TOUCHDESIGNER

UIZARD

LOOKA

TouchDesigner is a procedural, node-based authoring tool for building interactive 3D art, live performances, visualizations, X.R. / V.R. / A.R., prototypes and advanced user interfaces.

Anyone can have great ideas, but not everyone is a designer.

Powered by A.I., Uizard empowers anyone to easily design interactive web and mobile apps.

PIXELDRIFTER

P. XXX ← © → P. XXX

A.I. TOOLS

Pixel-Drifter brings scientific approach into image manipulation. It breathes life into pixel making them act just like a cluster of autonomous creatures or microbial colony.

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Looka is an A.I.-powered logo maker that provides a quick and affordable way to create a brand. It generates designs and customize fonts, colors, layouts, and more.

WATSON

Newlife.ai is a decentralized computing platform enabling a seamless flow of content, data and feedback loops between content creators and A.I. producers.

AMPER

Amper builds tools powered

by A.I. to help people create and customize original music.

It is composed of over one million individual samples and thousands of instruments.

FRONTY

JUKEDECK

Watson was developed by the IT service provider IBM to be able to execute correspondences that are entered in digital form in natural language.

Fronty converts images to HTML CSS and creates websites in minutes by uploading a screenshot or a webpage design, A.I. recognizes the structures, types, sections, elements, and almost all their styles.

Jukedeck is developing an artificially intelligent music composer—a system that writes original music completely on its own.

FACE-IMAGEMOTION-MODEL

FACE DEPIXELIZER

SKETCH CONFETTI

The neural network converts source images into animated sequences with motion transferred from driving videos.

ARTISTO

Artisto is a video processing application with filters based on neural network algorithms.

This neural network guess exactly how a person looks in a pixelated photograph. The Depixelizer will not be able to predict accurately, but it will be able to suggest approximate facial features.

Generate gorgeous confetti patterns in one click in your Sketch design tool.

DEEPDREAM

GIGAPIXEL AI

DeepDream uses a neural network to find and enhance patterns in images via an algorithm, creating a dreamlike hallucinogenic appearance in images.

Gigapixel AI is a photo enlargement product that can actually add detail back to your upscaled photo.

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217

A.I. TOOLS

Cubist Mirror is a mirror which reflects the world back in the Cubist painting style. It was first installed for alt-AI, a conference about art and artificial intelligence.

NEWLIFE.AI

P. XXX ← © → P. XXX

CUBIST MIRROR

TRAUMA DOLL

P. 275 ←

SOFIA CRESPO

222

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223

TRAUMA DOLL

SOFIA CRESPO

2017

P. 275 ←

GER

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238

SLOGANS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

CAN

P. 275 ← © → P. 285

2011

—

2014

These text-based works consist of thoughtprovoking statements, conceived by the artist, that have been boldly printed on brightly colored backgrounds that echo the form and color of standardized papers found globally

in office environments. They are installed in a manner meant to surround the viewer. Proclamations such as AUTOMATED GOVERNMENTS ARE INEVITABLE and A FULLY LINKED WORLD NO LONGER NEEDS A

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239

MIDDLE CLASS speak emphatically to contemporary citizens, indicating how much society at large has changed within one generation and hinting at even more dramatic changes to come. As a writer and visual

artist, Coupland has often disregarded the traditional divide between these disciplines.

Using letters, words and books as material and content for his art, Coupland harnesses the power of language in the visual realm.

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P. 275 ← © → P. 285

DOUGLAS COUPLAND

SLOGANS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

258

REDUCE SPEED NOW!

P. 277 ←

JUSTIN BRICE GUARIGLIA

USA

To mark Earth Day 2019, American artist and environmental activist Justin Brice Guariglia presents REDUCE SPEED NOW!, a new project commissioned by Somerset House bringing together international perspectives on the world’s ecological crisis. Using a series of

large solar-powered LED signs usually seen on motorways, Guariglia shares works which consider the global climate crisis from poets, writers, and philosophers from around the world and explores how people can navigate the complex issues surrounding this subject

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REDUCE SPEED NOW!

259

through different languages. Forming a striking installation in the neoclassical courtyard, the signs display aphorisms, poetry, and excerpts from literature from these international voices, engaging in ideas of sustainability and innovation. As part of this forum, visitors

to Somerset House are invited to contribute to the artwork and the wider ecological discussion by submitting their own writing for display during the course of the installation.

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P. 277 ←

JUSTIN BRICE GUARIGLIA

2019

288

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_____ _____ ___ ___ ___ _____ _ _ _____ _ _ _____ | ___ \| ___|| \/ | / _ \|_ _|| \ | ||_ _|| \ | || __ \ | |_/ /| |__ | . . |/ /_\ \ | | | \| | | | | \| || | \/ | / | __| | |\/| || _ | | | | . ` | | | | . ` || | __ | |\ \ | |___ | | | || | | |_| |_ | |\ | _| |_ | |\ || |_\ \ \_| \_|\____/ \_| |_/\_| |_/\___/ \_| \_/ \___/ \_| \_/ \____/ _ _____ _ _ _ __ _____ _____ ___

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+#++#++#++#++#++#++#++#++#++#+ SLANTED #37—ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has become—besides being an over-hyped buzzword across industries (that the design world is no exception to)— a reality. We debate about the impacts of A.I. and its subsets, machine and deep learning, and consider everything from virtual to augmented realities, and how these technologies may change our lives, jobs, and social relationships altogether.

We live in times when decisions about what we want are no longer under our control. While we believe to be free (at least in our western world), algorithms dictate our lives, hopes, and dreams. We are the parents and children, gods and slaves of the technology we invented: although it’s a masterpiece, there is a great dependence. If “algorithms will liberate themselves entirely from us,” Peter Weibel proposes, dystopian science fictions may help us clarify what we desire and do not want.

At Slanted, we are ‘hands on.’ We love the human spark, provoke happy accidents (scratches and glitches), explore edges, and consistently enter unknown terrain. So yes, although this is a printed issue, it could very well have been transported to a neural chip. More than ever this issue made us adventurers: looking with doubtful eyes at this new world of computation, numbers, and transhumanism, where (OMG!) machines are in many areas smarter than us and, occasionally, even encoded with higher ethical and moral standards than we will ever have.

During making, we often thought of Thomas Watson, the president of IBM, who exclaimed in 1943 that “there’s a world market for maybe five computers.” Probably in a few years, we’ll be laughing about all this.

All images marked with a play button can be viewed as video via A.R. (augmented reality). No app required! We created our own browser-based A.R. platform. All you need to do is scan this QR code or visit slanted.de/ai Moby Digg created a playful 3D walk, a digital experience featuring works of the artists displayed in this issue. You are invited to take a stroll along this outdoor gallery. All you need to do is scan this QR code or visit fairytale.slanted.de Most of the works in this issue can be discovered in depth by using the QR code next to the respective quote.