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European ARTificial Intelligence Lab, Ars Electronica

The Wandering Mind by Gershon Dublon (US), Xin Liu (CN), with guest artist Xiao Xiao (US/FR)

The Wandering Mind is an AI-powered performance platform for shaping dreams with the sounds of our world. Sampling tiny fragments of sound from tens of thousands of global field recordings found online, the system generates a winding sound journey for sleeping and meditating audiences.
In our curated performances, group naps and guided mind-wanderings, dream guides convene a collective action of sleeping together. Drawing largely from found sound of parks and public spaces across the world, we respond to the past years, in which stay-at-home orders have torn old social fabrics and mass uprisings have constituted new ones, and through which digital and physical public space has played a pivotal and transformative role.
In this special presentation, entitled “Field Sketches from Imaginary Travels,” Wandering Mind guest performer Xiao Xiao combines the live micro-sampled soundscapes with improvisational theremin, keyboard, and vocals. Like an artist on a nature stroll who copies interesting visual forms as gestures in a sketchbook, Xiao weaves impromptu compositions of sonic gestures by transcribing and elaborating seeds from the ambient auditory surroundings.

Credits
Support for the Wandering Mind comes from Ars Electronica and the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab (AILab), which granted the artists a residency in 2019, as well as from the Onassis Foundation and MAXMachina. Special thanks to residency hosts Mariano Sardon, Rocio Pilar and MUNTREF Arte-Ciencia, Buenos Aires. Nicholas Gillian and Nan Zhao contributed extensive creative and engineering support early on. Academic research and development on the Wandering Mind platform is underway at DVIC, Paris, with the support of Pôle Leonard de Vinci. Creative Commons licensed and public domain source material for the AI-powered sampler comes largely from the contributors to Radio Aporee, and was retrieved from the Internet Archive.

Baitul Ma’mur: House of Angels by Joe Davis (US), Sarah Khan (PK)

Ours has been a project to keep 2.417 quintillion angels on the head of a pin. We have been inspired by repeating geometries and nested calligraphies of Islamic art to demonstrate a similarly recursive scheme for DNA information-keeping. DNA molecules having 3 base-pairs or more simultaneously hold 3 unique numbers, and a coding strategy based on these numbers combines several different layers of informational symmetry. Our example is a molecule holding multiple encodings of “Subhan Allah” (سبحان الله ), an Arabic phrase said to have been repeated for more than 1000 years as an invocation associated with creating angels. Tradition holds that any number of angels can be generated in this way and that it makes no difference whether the phrase is spoken, written, or caused to be printed. Using technology to reliably synthesize DNA, we created iterations of “Subhan Allah” in astronomical numbers of DNA molecules to show that symbolism about changing the demographic of heaven can be elegantly aligned with capabilities for high density information storage in DNA. Each of our encoded DNA molecules contain 19.5 repeats of “Subhan Allah” so that a 1mm layer of DNA on the 0.75mm head of an average straight pin can hold over two hundred million billion angels. We hope our gesture of generating so many angels may provide comfort in times of a pandemic that has claimed millions of lives. This has been an exercise in bridge building, between art, mathematics, science, and spirituality across multiple expressions. We see humanity as one tribe, confronting the chaotic forces of nature, the accumulating toll of human impacts on our shared environment, and the problematic nature of our “best intentions,” behind which all too often lurk the terribly violent and destructive impulses that have shaped human history.
2.417 quintillion (2.417 X 10^18) angels in a 1mm layer of DNA on the head of a typical straight pin:
2.417 quintillion angels = 6E23 x 1 x pi x 0.752 x 1E-3/(330 x 258/19.5)

Credits
The artists also wish to acknowledge the following individuals for their contributions, support, and inspiration: Yassir Chadly, California (US); Saad Khan, Uprising Ventures, California (US); Je Hyuk Lee and Ryan Peters, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York (US); Kyle Cromer, Dept. of Pediatrics, Stanford Univ., California (US); Gabriel Filsinger, Harvard Medical School, Blavatnik Institute, Dept. of Genetics, Massachusetts (US); Ashley Bell Clark, Dept. of Photography, Pratt Institute, New York (US); David Deamer, Dept. of Biomolecular Engineering, Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, California (US); Adam Steinberg, Creative Technologies, Massachusetts (US); Peter Sasowsky, Serious Motion Pictures, California (US); George M. Church, Harvard Medical School, Blavatnik Institute, Dept. of Genetics, Massachusetts (US). With support from: To date all project costs have been covered out-of-pocket. Wet work has been carried out either commercially, at the lab benches of the principal artists, and/or at lab benches of friends and colleagues (incl., Je Hyuk Lee, Kyle Cromer, Gabriel Filsinger, and Ekin Kuru). Design and fabrication of the glass and aluminum “Baitul Ma’mur” structure, electronics, and project graphics production in the residential studio of one of the artists (Joe Davis) have also been self-funded. Ashley Clark, Peter Sasowsky, and Joe Davis have donated video production and editing services. Adam Steinberg has composed and performed an original score for a short Baitul Ma/mur documentary and David Deamer has contributed a musical score directly translated from the “Subhan Allah” DNA sequence.

The Museum of Edible Earth by masharu (RU/NL)

Geophagy is the scientific name for the practice of eating earth and earth-like substances such as clay and chalk. Eating earth is an ancient practice and is an integral part of many cultures across the world. The Museum of Edible Earth is a cross-disciplinary project with a core collection of earth samples which are eaten for various reasons by different people across the globe. It invites the audience to physically question our relationship to the environment and the Earth and to review our knowledge about food and cultural traditions using creative thinking. The Museum of Edible Earth addresses the following questions: What stands behind earth-eating traditions? Where does the edible earth come from? What are the possible benefits and dangers of eating earth? What engagement are we as humans establishing with our environment and non-humans? The Museum of Edible Earth has more than 400 edible earth samples, mostly clay, such as kaolin and bentonite as well as chalk, limestone, volcanic rock, diatomaceous earth, and topsoil. The materials originate from 34 countries. Alongside the earth collection, the Museum of Edible Earth includes graphic design materials, photography and video works, online edible earth interactive database, installations and performances. It fosters collaborations with scientists, artists, designers, researchers and cultural communities. The Museum of Edible Earth contributes to the cross-fertilization between science and art. There is scientific research on geophagy among both animals and humans. Papers about it are published in journals on anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, chemistry and biology. The Museum of Edible Earth is a mobile museum. Its presentations are mixed-media and participatory, often involving earth tastings, workshops, discussions, and screenings. Disclaimer: Eating earth is not recommended by food authorities and is at your own risk.

Credits
Founder: masharu
Project management: Sasa Hara, Irene Kobalchuk
Photo and video: masharu, Ielyj Ivgi, Jester van Schuylenburch and Anna Zamanipoor,
Anton Melles, Dave Soerjaman, Ielyj Ivgi, Jester van Schuylenburch, Koen de Boer, Mila Blok,
Rodney Tang, Jhalisa Rhens and Luuk Van Veen.
Graphic design: Olga Ganzha, Anna Zamanipoor, Dinesh Basnet, Rodney Tang and Dave Soerjaman
Web design: Raphaël Pia, Andrew Revinsky and William Ageneau
Product design: Basse Stittgen

Transformation of Scenery by Yoichi Ochiai (JP)

In order to mediate between the massive landscapes composed by original nature and the massless landscapes described by digital nature, Yoichi Ochiai continues to create artwork for transforming scenery. Between mass and masslessness, he is searching for a longing for mass and a sentiment for pixels. This work was originally created with the aim of transforming the horizons seen from the city. Light and images are added to the line that forms the boundary between sky and earth. Using a computational machine and a display device, the work depicts the “transformation of materialized nature” on the borderline of ideas visible from the observatory location. Carrying the concept further, a digital installation is created in various spaces by deploying mass-less images at the scale of the body as interactions with a large-scale transparent display to mediate various landscapes.
This installation employs the context of space as a borrowed landscape, and by displaying digital images without mass, it highlights the materializing potential of space and continues to mediate between the image and the material world. With this installation, the artist explores the possibilities of images floating in space, expressing our innate craving for physicality and the division between the physical and the digital.

Credits
Mayuna Omurai (visual / technical assistant), Kazu Zamasu (Engineering), Natsuki Matsunaga (Engineer), Kotaro Tanaka (Visual Design), Life is Style Inc (System / Sponsorship)

The project is supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Japan

Cypress Trees, a beginning - by Anna Ridler (UK), Caroline Sinders (US)

How can AI help us to face the climate crisis and other entwined challenges? This machine-learning-generated moving image piece gives insights into the complexity of data sets and raises questions about deforestation and the politics of climate change, memory and loss. Anna Ridler and Caroline Sinders created a special dataset of the Bald Cypress on the gulf coast of the USA, where both have family ties. These trees, which can live thousands of years, are currently considered to be “threatened” by climate change.

Moon Rabbit by Sarah Petkus (US), Mark J. Koch (US)

Since time immemorial, we humans have looked up to the heavens and wondered about the nature of our existence. And who knows – maybe one day we might even discuss this fundamental question with our digital offspring? If so, will they be able to help us discover answers in the patterns and data hidden in the starry sky? In a research and development phase lasting several months, Sarah Petkus and Mark J. Koch attempt to teach a suite of artificial intelligences to recognize familiar shapes and objects in images of star clusters, planetary surfaces, and other celestial bodies. Moon Rabbit aims to help form a team of humans and “AIs” whose focus is to discover meaning in the abstract. And maybe the AIs will even develop personalities and opinions of their own.

Made to Measure by Group Laokoon (DE)

For an artistic data experiment, the group Laokoon created a doppelganger of a person they didn’t know using only their personal Google data. Five years of this person’s life were reconstructed and filmed in detail on a large theatre stage. A few months later, the original and her datafied double met. The spectacular and one-of-a-kind experiment becomes tangible on an interactive storytelling website, where visitors can experience how far-reaching the insights into our inner lives and our most intimate secrets are, which we grant Google, Facebook & Co. every day. Tapping into a novel and complex digital narrative form, the cross-media project MADE TO MEASURE, which also includes a TV documentary, sheds light on how tech companies use the collected data of billions of people to turn their weaknesses, insecurities, illnesses and potential for addiction into profit.

Credits
Direction: Cosima Terrasse, Moritz Riesewieck, Hans Block
Development: Gruppe Laokoon, Kulturstiftung des Bundes
In coproduction with: WDR, SRG SSR, OSZE RfOM, Docmine and rbb
In cooperation with: PACT Zollverein
With support from: Kulturhaus Brotfabrik, vorAnker, Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien, Starts in Motion.
With kind support of the German embassy

Codex Virtualis by Interspecifics (INT)

Codex Virtualis is an artistic research framework oriented towards the generation of an evolving taxonomic collection of hybrid bacterial-AI organisms. With a subtle echo of endosymbiotic theory, we propose a symbolic formulation of a style transfer machine learning environment as a host in which to merge bacterial/archaea time-lapse microscopy footage along with multidimensional cellular automata computational models as endosymbionts, all under the orchestration of an autonomous generative non-adversarial network architecture. Our aim is to encounter novel algorithmically driven aesthetic representations tagged with a unique morphotype and genotype-like encoding, and that are articulated around a speculative narrative encompassing unconventional origins of life on earth and elsewhere.

Triopic Spectacle by PDNB (Postdigital Neobaroque) (AT/DE/IT/GB)

Postdigital Neobaroque Transmedia

As part of an ongoing process of decentralisation and democratisation of the digital, *Triopic Spectacle* endeavours to flatten the hierarchies between the real and the potential–a radical concept initiated by 17th century baroque thought. The transmedial installation challenges the outmoded, myopic, binary thinking of local/global, 1s/0s, individual/collective, real/virtual, analog/digital, natural/artificial by establishing a series of two-way windows, bridges, interfaces, portals and glitches between three ‘triopic’ domains: ‘real reality’, comprised of physical, robotically 3D-printed architectures to be experienced and interacted with by passers-by; ‘mixed reality’, a virtual, spatial, boundless and immersive ML-developed VR space for augmented visitors (with VR goggles); and ‘virtual reality’, an interactive and online-based social space for online users to interact with the abovementioned realities.

* Part of the FWF-PEEK funded research project Postdigital Neobaroque.

Credits
Developed within the research project entitled ‚Postdigital Neobaroque‘ led by Prof. Dr. Marjan Colletti, funded by the FWF Austrian Science Fund, Programme for Arts-based Research (PEEK).