ARS ELECTRONICA ARCHIVE – AI LAB

The European ARTificial Intelligence Lab (AI Lab) is a follow-up project to the European Digital Art and Science Network, a creative collaboration between scientific institutions, Ars Electronica and cultural partners throughout Europe that unites science and digital art. The European ARTificial Intelligence Lab follows on from this and addresses visions, expectations and fears that we associate with artificial intelligence. The consortium consists of 13 cultural institutions from Europe with Ars Electronica as coordinator. This online archive provides an overview of all activities carried out during the project's lifetime from 2018 to 2021. It also provides information about the network itself, the residency artists and juries, and the project partners involved. The AI Lab is co-funded by the EU program "Creative Europe (2014-2020)" and by the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

Exhibitions/Journeys 2021

Optic nerves and their time by Geocinema (INT)

AI Lab Journey
comissioned for the Ars Electronica Online Festival 2021.
published and streamed during the Festival, afterwards accessible via the Festival Website

Links

https://ars.electronica.art/newdigitaldeal/en/optic-nerves/

Start:

Sep 08, 2021

End:

Sep 12, 2021

Info:

In addition to scientific, technological and economic aspects, the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab focuses strongly on legal, cultural, educational and ethical dimensions of Artificial Intelligence. This allows a holistic model that considers human values and elementary questions of what AI should or should not do, as well as how AI systems are developed, deployed, used and monitored, and by whom. From the perspective of 13 major cultural operators in Europe and led by Ars Electronica, the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab centers visions, expectations and fears that we associate with the conception of a future, all-encompassing artificial intelligence.
While industries are pumping massive amounts of money into cutting-edge technologies to develop intelligent systems, we are connecting artists with research institutions and scientists to fill a gap in dealing with the social components and political questions arising from these enormous technological advances.

Cross reference

Ars Electronica, Geocinema (INT)

credits

These video commissions are presented in the framework of the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab, which is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

Biographies

Geocinema (Solveig Qu Suess, Asia Bazdyrieva) is a collective that explores the possibilities of a “planetary” notion of cinema. Their practice has been concerned with the understanding and sensing of the earth while being on the ground, enmeshed within vastly distributed processes of image and meaning making. Their work has been shown internationally, including the solo show Making of Earths (Kunsthall Trondheim). In 2020 they were nominated for the Schering Stiftung Award for Artistic Research.

Description

The work will focus on the key questions which sit at the core of Geocinema – both as a documentary-led research project and a collaborative practice. We will depart from the unobvious images of the Earth (such as calibration images, mathematical modeling of climates, satellite footage, etc.) to speak of the distributed and decentralized processes of sensing and imaging. We consider these processes of recording, transmission, archiving, stitching and distribution of data as an assemblage of technologic mediations that constitute a vastly distributed cinematic apparatus – a camera. Throughout the ‘journey’ we will unpack Geocinema through two strands; the first being epistemological. Here, cinema refers to a technique of mediating space and time in ways that are potent of feedback loops between our optical nerves, sensory experiences and the moving image. Secondly, while in conversation with media theorist Jussi Parikka and inspired by film and media theorists Ute Holl and Jenyfer Gabrys, we question the nature of such images to understand geometries of power and the agency that are implicit to the medium.