On Autopilot: Anxiety and Artificial Intelligence
Transmediale 2016 Proposal
Curated by Jeni Fulton and Rachel Rits-Volloch, with Aaajiao
Part of:
The Chronus Art Center Residency in Artificial Intelligence at MOMENTUM
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
MOMENTUM and Chronus Art Center (CAC), two non-profit art institutions from Berlin and Shanghai respectively, with a shared focus on Time-Based Art and New Media, here join forces to address a topic which is increasingly prevalent in the anxieties of popular culture: Artificial Intelligence (AI). While AI is beginning to be increasingly addressed as both a subject and a medium by artists in the West, in China this is still a new and virtually unexplored artistic field. Taking this unique historical moment as a starting point, MOMENTUM and CAC will build on the success of previous cooperations, such as our 2014 exhibition PANDAMONIUM: Media Art From Shanghai, to look at China’s role in this newly emerging field. With MOMENTUM’s role as a bridge between international art communities with a mission to explore how time-based art reflects the digitization of our societies and the resulting cultural change, and CAC’s stated mission being to bring to the public awareness of the impending post-human reality and the resulting social and political implications by accentuating the dynamic synergy of art and science as a response to the challenges and opportunities that contemporary media society has given rise to – the topic of AI, and the position of Chinese media artists within an international context will be explored through an involved engagement with the Berlin art community and with audiences at Transmediale.
The talks, workshops, and presentations proposed will be created specifically for Transmediale 2016, but are part of a long-term cooperation between MOMENTUM and Chronus Art Center involving an Artist Residency Exchange in Artificial Intelligence. The participating Chinese artists will be selected from a shortlist of the leading artists working in the field. The jury for the final selection has not yet convened. We will inform Transmediale as soon as the selection is made. The presentations made for Transmediale 2016 will form a part of our Residency research, while the works produced as a result of this Residency and documentation of presentations and events at Transmediale will be shown in an exhibition on Artificial Intelligence at MOMENTUM, in parallel with Transmediale 2017.
The Chronus Art Center Residency in Artificial Intelligence at MOMENTUM
MOMENTUM will host 2 Chinese artists, selected by CAC, working with Artificial Intelligence to participate in a Research Residency beginning with participation in workshops/presentations at Transmediale in January 2016, and resulting in the creation of new work to be shown in a group exhibition on Artificial Intelligence – ‘On Autopilot’: Art and Artificial Intelligence – at MOMENTUM in parallel with Transmediale in January-February 2017. The other artists participating in this group show will be selected by a jury of MOMENTUM curators and external experts in the field. This jury has not yet convened. This exhibition will include documentation of all work and events done for this project at Transmediale. These workshops and presentations will form the basis for the artistic research for the creation of new works for the exhibition. The aim is for the exhibition to travel to Chronus Art Center in 2017, including the Transmediale material.
On Autopilot: Anxiety and Artificial Intelligence
Google’s head of technology, Ray Kurzweil, recently predicted that we will achieve human-level artificial intelligence (AI) by 2029. Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, has warned repeatedly and urgently that we require robot ethics, else we are in serious danger of computers that will obliterate their human creators. AI is both utopic and destructive, and this duality has fascinated writers from Karel Capek who coined the term ‘Robot’ in 1920, to Stanislew Lem and Isaac Asimov. Its fascination has endured in popular culture, from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis via Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey to I, Robot and Ex Machina. Recently, artists such as Ian Cheng, Lars TCF Holdhus, Yuri Pattinson, Cecile B. Evans and Harm van den Dorpel have programmed chatbots, created virtual tour guides, and breathed life into primitive animated communities. All works address a situation where the computer is treated as a “metaphor for an organism, not as a mere calculator.” Artistic interest in AI is thriving, and it is creating new forms of art.
With the theme of the 2016 edition of the Transmediale being that of the anxieties surrounding cultural production and life under digital capitalism, out of the four main strands, two lend themselves to artists working with themes of AI: Anxious to Make and Anxious to Share. The first stream looks at cybernetic automation, DIY culture and industrial production. What are the functions of production and creation under this aegis? In terms of AI, this can be understood as the intersection between machine intelligence, machine creation and human participation. The second stream, Anxious to Share, examines how information sharing is happening, both large scale through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but also on smaller, more localised platforms, such as private WeChat or WhatsApp groups. One of the questions posed is ‘from a non-human perspective, are new scales of sharing emerging?’ In 2014, Twitter estimated that 8.5% of its users were bots. Twitter (and other social media) can be seen as large-scale experiments for the interaction between (primitive) AI and human agents. This opens up many avenues for artistic intervention, which can lead to workshops and participatory events, such as Pecha Kucha sessions.
MOMENTUM curators Rachel Rits-Volloch and Jeni Fulton will work closely with Shanghai-Based groundbreaking media artist and curator Aaajiao and the curatorial team of CAC to select 2 Chinese artists working in the fields of AI or machine intelligence and its interaction with human life and society, to come to Berlin for a 5-month Residency in Artificial Intelligence in January – May 2016. For Transediale 2016, these artists will present their work and artistic research as performance-lectures, with interactive installations open to audience participation. The curatorial team, including Aaajiao working from Berlin and networked with his extensive studio in Shanghai, will furthermore curate the presentation of related work by Chinese artists with participatory workshops to discuss and assess the artistic work being done in AI around the world and how China can emerge into this field. These workshops will be framed around the format of Pecha Kucha, with a presenation by all participants followed by an open discussion moderated by the curator of each section. We propose to hold daily Pecha Kucha events throughout the duration of Transmediale with topics selected by the curators and an open call to participants.
Because our juries have not yet convened to select the Chinese artists participating in the Residency, nor the other artists in the resulting group exhibition ‘On Autopilot’: Art and Artificial Intelligence, it is not possible to list all the participants at this time. This is very much a process-based project, which will unfold as participating artists are selected (by October 2015). Works presented as simple installations on monitors or laptops will be chosen from the shortlist of candidates for the CAC Residency in Artificial Intelligence and the On Autopilot Exhibition. The artists and curators will propose topics for each Pecha Kucha session and a shortlist of invited participants, with the rest being invited through an open call through our combined networks. MOMENTUM will document all these events and presentations for public display in our online Archive, and for inclusion in later iterations of the exhibition.
AI is, by its very nature, a cross-disciplinary field involving media art, computer programming, mediated interfaces, participatory and performative projects, just for a start. Transmediale audiences will be engaged on multiple levels through hybrid formats which at once exhibit and create, teach and learn. As traditionally Transmediale has attracted a mainly Western/US/European audience, it would be of significant benefit to involve artists working outside this geographical field of discourse, especially at this crucial moment when, in China, artistic work with AI is a newly emerging field.
Project Curators: Rachel Rits-Volloch & Jeni Fulton
Co-Curator, Participant: Xu Wenkai (Aaajiao)
RACHEL RITS-VOLLOCH, PhD – Founding Director, MOMENTUM
Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch is a graduate of Harvard University with a degree in Literature and holds an M.Phil and PhD from the University of Cambridge in Film Studies. She wrote her dissertation on visceral spectatorship in contemporary cinema, focusing on the biological basis of embodiment. Having lectured in film studies and visual culture, her focus moved to contemporary art after she undertook a residency at A.R.T Tokyo. Rachel Rits-Volloch is currently based in Berlin, having previously lived and worked in the US, UK, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Istanbul, and Sydney. nRachel Rits-Volloch founded MOMENTUM in 2010 in Sydney, Australia, as a parallel event to the 17th Biennale of Sydney. Since that time, MOMENTUM has evolved into a non-profit global platform for time-based art, with headquarters in Berlin at the thriving art center, Kunstquartier Bethanien.
JENI FULTON, PhD – Associate Director, MOMENTUM
Jeni Fulton is Associate Director at MOMENTUM. She is also the Art and Commissioning Editor for Sleek Magazine, a Berlin-based print publication covering all aspects of contemporary visual culture. She obtained an M.A. (Hons) in philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and is currently completing her PhD Thesis on “Value and Evaluation in Contemporary Art” at the Faculty for Cultural Theory at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung Berlin. Her PhD thesis examines how different systems of art evaluation (economic, symbolic and institutional) interact in the field of contemporary art to create a concept of contemporary artistic value. She has written catalogue texts for artists including Christian Jankowski. She is bilingual in German and English and is fluent in French.
XU WENKAI (AAAJIAO):
http://www.eventstructure.com
http://cornersound.com
Xu Wenkai (Aaajiao) (b. 1984, Xi’an) is one of China’s foremost media artists, bloggers and free culture developers. Having studied physics and computers, Xu Wenkai is self-taught as an artist and new media entrepreneur. In his works he focuses on the use of data and its various forms of display. In 2003 he established the sound art website cornersound.com and in 2006 he founded the Chinese take on the blog We Make Money Not Art: We Need Money Not Art. He is devoted to Processing, an open-source visual programming software, Dorkbot, a non-profit initiative for creative minds and Eventstructure, an interdisciplinary center for art, media, technology and academic research based in Shanghai and founded by Xu. In his works, Aaajiao focuses on the use of data and its various forms of display and on the processes of transforming content from reality to data and back again. His most significant contribution to the field of new media in China is a social one, as he act a as a vector for the interpretation and communication of international and local trends in the artistic use of software. Recent exhibitions include his solo-show titled The Screen generation, at C Space (2013) and chi K11 Art Space in Shanghai and at 9m2 Museum in Beijing (2014) and group-exhibition TRANSCIENCE – INTRACTABLE OBJECTS at Taikang Space in Beijing (2014). He participated in Transmediale (2010) and in PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai at MOMENTUM (2014).
RELATED MATERIAL:
Article on Artificial Intelligence in Contemporary Art published by Jeni Fulton:
https://www.academia.edu/14461469/Artificial_Intelligence_in_Contemporary_Art
(A presentation format now expanded to a global network founded by Mark Dytham in Tokyo in 2003):
Previous cooperations between MOMENTUM and CAC:
PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai (2014) >>
The PANDAMONIUM Artist Residency >>
The Best of Times the Worst of Times Revisited (2014) >>
MOMENTUM is a Gallery, a Project Space, a Collection, an Archive, a Residency, a Public Art Initiative, a Salon, and a Network active worldwide since 2010. MOMENTUM is a non-profit and non-commercial platform for time-based art, with headquarters in Berlin at the Kunstquartier Bethanien. Through our program of Exhibitions, Education, Public Video Art Initiatives, Residencies, and the Collection and Performance Archive, we are dedicated to providing a platform for exceptional artists working with time-based practices. MOMENTUM’s mission is to continuously reassess the growing diversity and relevance of time-based practices, always seeking innovative answers to the question, ‘What is time-based art?’. As the world speeds up, and time itself seems to flow faster, MOMENTUM seeks to explore how time-based art reflects the digitization of our societies and the resulting cultural change. By enabling Exhibition, Discussion, Research, Creation, Collection, and Exchange, MOMENTUM is a platform which challenges the notion of time-based art in the context of both historical and technological development. Positioned as both a local and global platform with a vast international network, MOMENTUM serves as a bridge joining professional art communities, irrespective of institutional and national borders. The long-term Goals of MOMENTUM are: Building Knowledge, Building Audiences, Supporting Artists and Artistic Innovation, bringing to Berlin work by international artists that would not otherwise have been seen here, and ensuring an international audience for exceptional local artists. The key ideas driving MOMENTUM are: Collaboration, Exchange, Education, Innovation, and Inspiration. With a non-exclusive and non-elitist view, MOMENTUM believes ART IS FOR EVERYONE.
The MOMENTUM Residency, dedicated to artistic research into time and temporality, houses up to 3 artists or curators at a time. With weekly supervision by the Residency Coordinator, and with the daily support of the curatorial team, MOMENTUM offers a process-based Residency, wherein artists are given individual guidance and support with the research and development of their work. Drawing on MOMENTUM’s extensive network of contacts in both the visual arts and the broader cultural field, the Residency arranges talks, workshops, studio and gallery visits, and other events in order to connect art professionals who mutually benefit from collaboration and exchange. As a platform active globally, MOMENTUM is committed to documenting its activities and making these available as educational resources for both art professionals and the general public.
Established in 2013, Chronus Art Center (CAC) is China’s first nonprofit art organization dedicated to the presentation, research / creation and scholarship of media art. CAC with its exhibitions, residency-oriented fellowships, lectures and workshop programs and through its archiving and publishing initiatives, creates a multifaceted and vibrant platform for the discourse, production and dissemination of media art in a global context. CAC is positioned to advance artistic innovation and cultural awareness by critically engaging with media technologies that are transforming and reshaping contemporary experiences.
Since its founding by the entrepreneur Dillion ZHANG, independent curator LI Zhenhua, and artist HU Jieming, CAC has organized a series of solo and group exhibitions, among them “Extra Time” by the Indian artist collective Raqs Media, and “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times” curated by David Elliott. In 2014 CAC presented Jeffrey Shaw and HU Jieming, an exhibition featuring two noted media artists, and “Pandamonium” in partnership with MOMENTUM, Berlin, and co-curated by David Elliott and LI Zhenhua. CAC also launched educational and fellowship programs in collaboration with a number of art institutions including the China Academy of Arts (Hangzhou), V2_Institute for Unstable Media (Rotterdam), and the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, among others. Located in the M50 Creative Park near the Suzhou River in Shanghai and occupying a multifunctional space of 800 square meters, CAC provides the public with a year-round exhibition calendar, lecture and workshop series and other special programs.
Beginning in 2015, under the artistic direction of ZHANG Ga, a curator and professor of media art, and with the support of a newly established international advisory board consisted of leading scholars, artists and museum professionals, CAC has restructured its programming by launching a series of interdisciplinary projects, including an ambitious research / creation–oriented fellowship and commissions project, thematic exhibitions and educational programs that contextualize historical and present day media art conditions, expanded global collaboration and exchange. CAC brings to the public awareness of the impending post-human reality and the resulting social and political implications by accentuating the dynamic synergy of art and science as a response to the challenges and opportunities that contemporary media society has given rise to.
