Festival 2020

Programme

Artificial Intelligence: Limitless Potential vs Liminal Transcendence

KQB Studio 1, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin Map
Tickets: 5 / 10 € day pass
Jan

28

Tue
16:30 18:00

Panel with Helena Nikonole, James Ginzburg (emptyset), Wesley Goatley, and Marija Bozinovska Jones. Moderated by Ricardo Saavedra.

The rapid development of so-called "artificial intelligence" presents both society and culture with increasing challenges on various fronts. When it comes to implementations in the arts, questions of whether computers can attain creativity and understand emotions, or at least produce results comparable to human output, are controversial and test established artistic ideas and models.

Throughout such processes, differing conceptions of emotionality and creativity emerge. Depending on the model of creativity, machines are attributed with potentials exceeding human possibilities (combinatorial creativity) or saddled with insurmountable limitations (topical creativity). Do creative achievements necessarily emerge through human attempts to transcend limitations? Aren’t the contexts and histories of the arts indispensable in the pursuit of feeling, perceiving, and understanding them? And isn’t it precisely such information that is in danger of being lost in the face of big data, algorithmic recommendation, pattern recognition, and other applications of machine learning within culture? Should we perhaps be less concerned that machines could become human-like artists, and more alarmed about the alignment of human creativity and perception of art with machine processes?

ARTISTS

emptyset[UK/DE]

emptyset is a multidisciplinary production project founded founded by James Ginzburg and Paul Purgas exploring the sonic possibilities of electroacoustic and computer music, architecture, and performance. Recent record Blossoms, released via Thrill Jockey, comprises a series of experimental collaborations with a machine learning system.

Helena Nikonole[RU]

Moscow-based media artist, curator, and educator Helena Nikonole is interested in technological progress and its implications. Embracing hybridity, new aesthetics, the Internet of Things, and Artificial Intelligence, Nikonole explores technology’s potential opportunities, risks, and dangers.

Marija Bozinovska Jones aka MBJ Wetware[MK/UK]

Marija Bozinovska Jones explores links between social, computational, and organic architectures. Her work revolves around technocapitalist amplification and through her proxy MBJ Wetware, often probes selfhood: from subatomic level to multitude networked presence on planetary scale and beyond. Unpacking cryptic ways of forging subjectivity, she contemplates a myriad of behaviours in biological and other complex systems. 

Wesley Goatley[UK]

Wesley Goatley is a sound artist and researcher based in London, UK. His installations, sound objects, and live audio-visual performances critique the common language and imagery used to describe data and artificial intelligence, and the power these symbols have in shaping the world and our understanding of it.

Ricardo Saavedra[BR]

Ricardo Saavedra is an interface designer and HCI researcher based in Berlin. His design research explores new visualisation methods for machine learning interpretability (XAI), alternative approaches to urban sensing, and portable tools for the governance of virtual worlds (Metagov).

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