The AI, Architecture and Exhibition (AAE) research project focuses on critically analysing the current usage and possible further applications of Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, in particular within exhibition-making. The research and analyses developed for AAE are based on an interdisciplinary approach between exhibition and other space-related practices (such as architecture) in which matters of space, creativity, data production, collecting, and archiving are exposed and brought into discussion. Here critical thought is given to how AI can be used to develop exhibitions. The research particularly addresses practices that focus on the space itself and critically engages with available tools and processes for exhibition architecture and design. These practices touch upon key matters of the field, including creativity and automation, data awareness and accessibility, and work/labour concerns. 

Can machines think? Can machines be creative? These questions have fascinated artists, scientists and engineers ever since computers became available for civilian use in the early 1950s. In the laboratories of universities, research centres and industry, there was continuous research into the further development of “artificial intelligence” programmes, but interested laypersons had little opportunity to familiarise themselves with the technology that will change the world of work and everyday life just as much as it may change art and our understanding of creativity. With major advances in research and the recent decision by large corporations to make artificial intelligence software available as open source, the field is now open to new players.

The planned events will offer scientists, engineers and artists the opportunity to exchange views on the state of research and the perspective of the arts. The events stimulate long-term cooperation between the actors from science, technology and art and thus creates the prerequisites for jointly developing artistic projects that reveal possible horizons of artificial intelligence for the individual and society. An online publication introducing the topic is in preparation.

Curating Images will offer an assembly of articles and conversations, with a focus on questions related to different curatorial practices concerning photo-based images: What are the considerations and challenges curator’s face today when they work on photo-based projects, and how do they navigate throughout the constantly changing appearance of the photographic medium? What kind of role do photo-based images occupy in contemporary exhibition- and curatorial practices? How are issues of representations and visibility dealt with? And what kind of mediation takes place while seeking interaction with the audiences? This volume offers the reader insights in a wide range of experiences, reflections and opinions from the perspective of curators, artists, scholars and other professionals in the fields who engage with the curation of photo-based images.

Based on existing issues associated with exhibiting online-based art and informed by previous approaches, the present thesis presents and analyzes examples of past and current exhibition platforms and curatorial strategies for online-based art in order to identify the potentials and constraints of the field and, subsequently, suggest further developments and possible actions. In order to provide a more grounded background to the current scenario, the thesis first investigated how online-based art has been exhibited since the 1990s. By doing so, it questions how past practices can contribute to a better understanding and development of the field today. For that purpose, the research relied mainly on existing literature from previous studies and on the still available primary sources of the analyzed projects. In addition to these resources, interviews were conducted as complementary references to the selected projects: Welcome to the Wired World (1995) and net_condition (1999); Platform Stockholm’s Curatron (2013 – ongoing); Link Art Center’s Link Cabinet (2014 – ongoing); ZKM’s ArtOnYourScreen (2014); the Akademie Schloss Solitude’s Web Residencies (2015 – ongoing); the Museum of Digital Art’s Hal 101 curating algorithm (2015 – ongoing); and the Archive of Digital Art’s CODeDOC Remediated exhibition (2016). The results of this investigation thus include: an overview of past and present platforms and curatorial strategies for online-based art, which identified significant shifts in their formats and discourses throughout the years (Chapter One); an analysis of current online exhibition platforms, which indicated a need to further question the terminology and to address the potentials of the interface for online-based art (Chapter Two); and, lastly, an overview of past and present community-building platforms, highlighting the current strategies and the importance of the network within the field, which then indicated an ongoing shift in the relationship between curators and artists as more collaborative and less hierarchical (Chapter Three). Furthermore, the thesis concludes that the current scenario asks for a more open, malleable and experimental curatorial practice – one that is aligned with the present culture and structures of the web, which is based on the concept of the perpetual beta, i.e., where platforms and practices are constantly updated and in transformation.

This book is the result of a process of documentation of various participations and contributions developed in the framework of the course Politics of Survival, integrated within Porto City Council’s Coletivos Pláka 2018 project.

The aim of Politics of Survival was to activate and transmit knowledge, looking, in that transmission, for ways of replicating the flows and itineraries of the streets, squares, sites, and unused spaces. The city is performatic, so is knowledge. The city shelters, so does the planet. To think the political dimension of the transmission of knowledge has to imply thinking about the ways through which we position ourselves in the world today. As human beings, we are attempting to survive in every sense, aware of a humanity that sheds through the multiple corners of the world, transforming them; of a climate so unpredictable to the point of disquiet; and, as producers of thought and art, we questioned how our artistic, individual and collective practices, our research and writings could change something so vast as the entire planet. In order to pursue this questioning we summoned philosophers, artists, film-makers, architects, geographers, urban planners, activists, flanêurs, and flaneuses.

The project had workshops, round conversations, city wanderings, and video screenings searching for connecting lines that would open up solutions without closing down possibilities.

Under the theme »Curating AI«, Lia Carreira (moderator), Francis Hunger, Răzvan Ion & Magda Tyżlik-Carver will address the opportunities and challenges associated with the use of AI in the field of curation.

The five-part online panel »Taming AI« on art and AI is dedicated to the various areas in which artificial intelligence technologies are currently relevant for cultural institutions and not least for society.

(PT)

Nesta fala, a pesquisadora Lia Carreira discorrerá sobre a relação entre apropriação de imagens no campo da Arte e o nosso atual contexto de políticas da imagem, no qual há uma crescente preocupação com reconhecimento facial para controle e vigilância em massa e com práticas relacionadas à Machine Learning/Inteligência Artificial.

(EN)

In this talk, researcher Lia Carreira will discuss the relationship between the appropriation of images in the field of Art and our current context of image politics, in which there is a growing concern with facial recognition for mass control and surveillance and with practices related to Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence.

What does Artificial Intelligence have to do with art and culture? Artists, cultural organisations and scientists come together to discuss the topic of Artificial Intelligence in the cultural sector. This program has been initiated by Goethe Institute.

It is the solution to all our problems and the beginning of the end of all creativity – hardly any current technological development is so hyped and so controversially discussed at the same time as Artificial Intelligence.

But AI has long since ceased to be a pie in the sky and is now part of everyday life. This is no different in the cultural sector. While art powered by AI comes under the hammer at major auction houses, AI is also used in many ways by cultural organisations, whether to make their own work easier or to provide the public with new experiences.

In recent years, the Netherlands have become a hub of AI developments. The start-up sector in particular is generating more and more new ideas and applications – that can be transported to the cultural sector. Where is AI already used by artists and cultural institutions? Which innovations bring do start-ups to the table? And what effects does the technological development have on cultural work?

Experts from the fields of art, culture and science will debate these among other questions.

With artist Sebastian Schmieg, Artist Dries Depoorter, Tomo Kihara (Waag Society), researcher media art Lia Carreira, Oliviana Bailey (Rockstart) and Olof van Winden (TodaysArt).

This program has been initiated by Goethe Institute.

For this discussion, Lia Carreira addressed the use of Artificial Intelligence (specifically the field of Machine Vision) for Facial recognition, opening the discussion towards two particular phenomena: deep fakes and China’s current facial recognition project of mass control. Lia also addressed how artist are also exploring the aesthetic and narrative potentials of such technologies, through Mario Klingemann’s Alternative Facet, Karen Palmer’s Riot, and Adam Harvey’s and The Peng! Collective alternative proposals for the current use of our bodies through technology.

The lecture spans across different aspects of contemporary digital culture, addressing key issues in image politics. Specifically, it draws upon recent debates regarding the appropriation of images using Machine Learning (such as with the current Deepfake phenomena), highlighting their concerns towards privacy, surveillance, control and identity. Through the discussion of those practices, the lecture will address the fragmentation of the body within digital image visualization and analysis, establishing a link to its historical backgrounds in modern photography.

Not only is digitization now in art’s DNA, cultural institutions are beginning to embark on disruptive paths in order to facilitate and support innovative processes. The »smARTplaces | INNOVATION in Culture« conference analyzes possibilities, and also necessities, of digital renewal within culture and spotlights audience development.

Artificial Intelligence has raised much attention in the last couple of years, becoming a buzz word in many sectors. As the technological development progresses and becomes evermore accessible and applicable in our daily lives, the need to better understand the concept and the conditions of its developments also rises. What is in fact »Artificial Intelligence« and how has it been applied in different fields? The present talk will give an overview of this recent context, with a focus on how AI has been applied in the cultural sector by artists and art institutions. By doing so, it aims to provide general guidelines for applying AI in the arts and culture, while highlighting the major concerns and needs of the field. It furthermore questions: what is the role of cultural and artistic institutions in this scenario? And how can they better contribute to the current discussions on AI?