BNAIC 2021: AI & Art

Title of the talk

AI and Art in the Algorithmic Condition: Interdisciplinarity and Procedural Thinking

Abstract of the talk

The geological era we currently live in has been termed the ëAnthropoceneí. Technoculturally, our times can be called the ëalgorithmic conditioní (Colman et al. 2018). Working with networked computers and algorithmic media, we have transgressed the limits of the ëpostmodern conditioní (Lyotard [1979] 1984) as questions of translation into computer languages and of commodified exchange have now been superseded by those questioning automated text generation (not copying), ëcontingent computationí (Fazi 2018), and the commodification of affect.

This talk opens up the terrain between AI, the humanities, and art by using the algorithmic condition as a common ground to start from. Our current-day condition is complex and requires an interdisciplinary approach (cf. Repko & Szostak 2021). Methodologically, both interhuman, human-computer, and computer-computer interaction takes a shape procedurally whereby procedures are step-by-step, i.e., algorithmic methods (Verhoeff and Van der Tuin 2020, Van der Tuin and Verhoeff 2022).

This talk unpacks two artistic projects of Zambia-born and South Africa-based artist Nolan Oswald Dennis through the above set of concerns: Biko.Dialogues from 2020 in which machinically-mediated, ëimpossibleí conversations are generated by an algorithm and No Conciliation is Possible in its 2021 incarnation which diagrams procedurally across the Anthropocene, the algorithmic condition, and (de)colonization strategies. Both works were exhibited at ARoS, a museum in Aarhus, DK in March-October 2021.

Short bio

Iris van der Tuin is Professor of Theory of Cultural Inquiry in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Utrecht University, where she is also university-wide Dean for Interdisciplinary Education. In 2021-22 Iris van der Tuin is Novo Nordisk Foundation guest professor in the Laboratory for Art Research, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen and at Aarhus University.

Iris is interested in humanities scholarship that traverses the ëtwo culturesí and reaches beyond the boundaries of academia. As such, she coordinates the special interest group AI in Cultural Inquiry and Art: Thinking and Making in the Algorithmic Condition, a SIG of the focus area Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence at her university. This Fall Critical Concepts for the Creative Humanities will come out, a book Iris co-authored with Nanna Verhoeff.

2nd Keynote Talk

Manuela Naveau

Manuela Naveau, PhD is an Austrian artist, researcher, scientist and curator at Ars Electronica, where she developed the Ars Electronica Export department together with Artistic Director Gerfried Stocker and led it operationally for almost 18 years.

Since 2020, Manuela Naveau has been a university professor for Critical Data at the Interface Cultures Department of the University of Art and Design Linz and has held teaching positions at the Paris Lodron University in Salzburg, the Technical University in Vienna and the Danube University Krems.

Her book Crowd and Art – Kunst und Partizipation im Internet (Crowd and Art ñ Art and Participation in the Internet) was published in 2017 by transcript Verlag, Germany. The book is based on her dissertation, for which she received the Award of Excellence from the Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy in 2016.

Title and short abstract of the talk will follow asap!