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THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Dangerous 'Art' and Roger Malina's portrait sketch
(YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 29 Jul 2019 19:43:01 +0200
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: "yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr" <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Dangerous 'Art' and Roger Malina's
portrait sketch
Message-ID:
<mailman.0.1564516994.2835.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Dear all, and Roger,
As much as I enjoy following the Yasmin discussions, I cannot help but to quickly reply, on the occasion of the Earth Overshoot Day, to Roger?s thoughts.
Firstly, nearly all that is considered to be contemporary art, by the leading few, ever closely followed by the general public, cannot possibly be considered contemporary art. This is self-evident if you take the time to think about it, but I can give a few pointers: post-Duchampian contemporary artists, can only really consider themselves artists, and indeed do art, if they firstly engage in the ever-higher ?meta? levels, otherwise their work is alienated, and subsumed by the curatorial stance of the private and public institutions funding, and hosting their work. The established star-artists we hear and read about, and sometimes meet out there, are at best, part of ?art history?, not contemporary art. Contemporary art can and is only being done by people not considered artists, and who most probably do not even consider themselves as artists. For AI to ?get? art, you need AI to ?get?, and laugh about a joke, which is something apparently AI cannot do (and quite a substantial part of the human population for that matter). Maybe AI would start to understand jokes, and contemporary art when the simulated neural network is embodied, and the body is simulated to be finite.
Secondly, and this too is self-evident: all real art is ?dangerous?, and quite frankly should not be ?curated?, neither by a machine or a human being. It is dangerous for the artist making it, and should definitely be dangerous for the people engaging with it. My latest documented interaction with Roger for instance is one example. There are many other examples out there. No matter how much you put your faith is science and technology to help human race escape its own looming finitude on this Earth, and most likely everywhere else, one cannot help but think, that humans disappearing altogether is indeed a good thing, what with all we?ve seen so far. Art is definitely becoming ever so dangerous, as it should be.
On a lighter note, and as and extended invitation to some of the scientists out there: I will be launching next year a drawing performance project with an Italian NGO to help fundraise for migrants and refugees coming to Europe: I shall be doing a 100 portraits a day for the better part of the year to reach 30000 portraits, and help generate half a million euros for the selected NGO, and I will be most likely be using an iPad pro to do the drawing, and would very much be interested in sharing the drawing data with anyone out there who would be able to us AI to study the dynamics of my drawings, and see if AI cannot reproduce similar types of drawings. Just for curiosity?s sake, and to basically the point I was making earlier. To find examples of my drawing style, here?s a link of the series of portraits I just did of Frank and Roger Malina https://photos.app.goo.gl/72jfrJGVdgc4JURm7
I am also more than happy to do the portraits of all the Yasminers out there who should wish to have their portraits done.
Best to all
G.H. Rabbath Ph.D.
From: yasmin_discussions-request@ntlab.gr
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2019 11:00 AM
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: Yasmin_discussions Digest, Vol 13, Issue 1
Send Yasmin_discussions mailing list submissions to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
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THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST
Today's Topics:
1. dangerous art: AI Curators (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
2. dangerous art; AI-beings (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
3. Re: Fwd: AI: dangerous art/dangerous science (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
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Message: 1
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2019 13:18:25 -0500
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] dangerous art: AI Curators
Message-ID:
<mailman.21.1564322514.35508.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
yasminers
i am forwarding nina's post on the Call for papers: Digital
Collecting Practices: Artificial
Intelligence, Social Media and Ethics. 16 October, University of Leeds. se below
i would like to introduce another dangerous art idea: leading curators
are now beginning
to use AI to curate selection of art works for exhibitions.
There is now comprehensive data bases of all art sales ( eg artbase
https://www.artbase.com/ )
with the sales data you can use complex data analysis to find patterns
of artists who start on
the periphery of the artworld, and then are selected in the venice
biennale etc and become
famous later
you can use these models to predict future value of the artwork
using AI software you can select artists who are just emerging from
the periphery
but who will become famous later
would you still go to the Venice Biennale if it was curated by an AI-being ?
What are the ethical and legal issues we can predict if AI curating takes
over the curating of art ?
roger malina
From: <czegledy@interlog.com>
From: "Arran Rees [RPG]" <fhajr@LEEDS.AC.UK>
Subject: Call for papers: Digital Collecting Practices: Artificial
Intelligence, Social Media and Ethics. 16 October, University of Leeds.
Call for papers: Digital Collecting Practices: Artificial
Intelligence, Social Media and Ethics
16 October 2019. University of Leeds.
CFP deadline: 9 August 2019
Taking place at the University of Leeds on 16 October 2019, this
symposium is particularly focused on the use of artificial
intelligence (AI) and/or social media, and the ethical implications
and considerations of doing so in museums, archives and libraries.
The symposium is the culmination of a collaboration between the Centre
for Critical Studies in Museums, Galleries and
Heritage<http://www.ccsmgh.leeds.ac.uk/> at the University of Leeds
and Collecting Social Photo
<http://collectingsocialphoto.nordiskamuseet.se/> ? a three year
Nordic research project ? looking into the potential of image
recognition software in museum and archive cataloguing processes.
The event will begin with an introduction from the Collecting Social
Photo project and a presentation of the collaboration outcomes. The
rest of the day will provide opportunities for speakers to share their
insights on the ethical and practical implications of other cultural
collections projects that use AI and social media.
Please see the link below for the details of the CFP.
Deadline for submissions - 9 August 2019
https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/fine-art/news/article/1348/call-for-papers-digital-collecting-practices-artificial-intelligence-social-media-and-ethics
[https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/images/evolution_3778196_1920_Image_by_Gerd_Altmann_from_Pixabay.jpg]<https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/fine-art/news/article/1348/call-for-papers-digital-collecting-practices-artificial-intelligence-social-media-and-ethics>
Call for papers ? Digital Collecting Practices: Artificial
Intelligence, Social Media and
Ethics<https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/fine-art/news/article/1348/call-for-papers-digital-collecting-practices-artificial-intelligence-social-media-and-ethics>
This one-day symposium will examine emerging digital museum and
archive practices related to collecting and collections management.
ahc.leeds.ac.uk
Arran Rees
Doctoral Researcher
School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies
University of Leeds
fhajr@leeds.ac.uk
<http://www.fine-art.leeds.ac.uk/people/arran-rees/>https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/fine-art/pgr/1614/arran-rees
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------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 27 Jul 2019 13:35:10 -0500
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] dangerous art; AI-beings
Message-ID:
<mailman.22.1564322636.35508.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
glenn
i would like to pick up on your
"First, our current AI is not nearly as "intelligent" as the general
public believes it to be -- but at the same time, we perhaps do
not appreciate the enormous impact it's going to have on human
society. "
i agree- i first started thinking differently on this when bernard
stiegler started
discussing digital devices under the idea of 'organology'
eg your sell phone is not a tool but an organ- if your cell phone gets sick
you get sick ( eg people dont know how to navigate without gps access now)
AI software i think needs to be thought of organically as primitive and rapidly
evolving organisms-- i like to call them AI-Beings....already the AI
beings around
me are more annoying than mosquitoes and are clearly more intelligent than
mosquitoes in that there is no simple bug 'spray' that can get the ai-beings out
of my room when i am falling to sleep
roger malina
Roger is in dallas, then chicago end july, then paris aug 2
in london aug 6/7/8 then paris until aug 15-contact me if
you are available to meet
whatsapp, eechat , messenger+1-510-853-2007 and +33680459447 in
europe.This email address for leonardo related work,
rmalina@alum.mit.edu use roger.malina@utdallas.edu for UTD work
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2019 14:53:37 -0400
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] Fwd: AI: dangerous art/dangerous
science
Message-ID:
<mailman.23.1564327272.35508.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
Hello Yasminers,
I am responding to Marian Mazzone and Glenn Smith.
Marian writes "The good art is being made by human artists who are
knowledgeably using aspects of AI to complement or subvert their own
systems of creativity." and I think this is very important. In
connection with Glenn's comments, and coming back to the "dangerous"
AI/art, one interesting yet problematic aspect of these early days of
deep-learning art, is that there are very intimate connections between
very big corporations and art that uses deep learning. A very vivid
example is Deep Dream, an ingenious approach invented by Alexander
Mordvintsev. I would argue that because Deep Dream was developed inside
Google, it quickly became a trope evolving outside of the normal
circuits of art, and as thus became so deeply associated with Google
that it is now impossible to make anything using this technique without
it being associated with Google. I wish Deep Dream had been invented by
an independent artist, as it is such an interesting and potentially rich
approach to working with neural nets; and indeed I would be curious to
know whether there were other artists working with "inceptionism" before
Deep Dream. But the fact that Mordvintsev worked for Google when he
developed Deep Dream, is such a strong symbol of the hegemony of Google.
I guess media art history is full of such examples (eg. companies such
as Bell, IBM and Philips had a profound impact on the development of new
media art in the 1960s through the 1980s). One could also argue that
certain art forms (if not all) are inseparable from the corporations
that developed certain tools (such as Fender and Moog). But it occurs to
me that the situation is very different now, not so much because of the
technology itself, but because of the unprecedented power differentials
that exist.
The question of "truth" is also really important here and the question
that Marian Mazzone brings up is one of its many dimensions (I need to
think about it more). The question of truth is at the very core of AI:
it brings us back to the fundamental worldview behind artificial
intelligence, embodied in the Turing test, which posits that as long as
a machine can "fake" intelligence then it IS intelligent; and that it
does not matter "how" this is done, be it using a set of if-then-else
statements or a simulation of neural nets. However even the history of
AI itself has demonstrated that "how" a computer program works matter:
the fact that neural networks (simulations of biological processes) have
(at least for now) won the war against symbolic/rule-based AI indicates
that "faking it" is not enough, that even AI seems to work better when
it is closer to the "truth" of reproducing dynamical processes of
human/animal bodies.
Sofian Audry
On 2019-07-18 9:23 a.m., YASMIN DISCUSSIONS wrote:
> re-sending
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: Marian Mazzone <marian.mazzone@gmail.com>
> Date: Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 10:34 AM
> Subject: AI: dangerous art/dangerous science
> To: <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
>
>
> Hello Yasmin listers,
>
>
>
> Marian Mazzone here, I?m an art historian who works as a member of the Art
> & AI Lab at Rutgers, and I teach the history of contemporary and new media
> art.
>
>
>
> Glad to see this discussion coming up, looking forward to hearing more from
> those of us doing this work. We need to speak out more, especially in
> response to the too simple and odd ideas about what AI is and what AI can
> do that are often found in the press and public. As an art historian, I?ve
> had to answer many questions from journalists and artists who?ve seen the
> work at the lab and are unclear and/or misinformed about what AI is capable
> of and its potential as a threat to human artists and art making.
>
>
>
> Sofian Audry rightly points out how relatively ?dumb? the current AI
> systems are, and how little they can actually do (versus data needed to
> train, etc.). The complexity and depth of what human artists do is light
> years beyond this; what AI can do is augment, work as a limited partner, be
> a tool to introduce chance operations or impose medium conditions, etc.
> Creation of visual images can happen, but at a comparatively low level and
> only after an immense amount of machine training. For me, the greater
> interest has become not arguing for the existence or quality of AI art but
> learning more about how machines learn, especially something as difficult
> as art. Being cognizant of how any level of creativity happens within AI is
> vital.
>
>
>
> The good art is being made by human artists who are knowledgeably using
> aspects of AI to complement or subvert their own systems of creativity.
> Like with the introduction of any new medium or means, experimentation and
> adaptation are proceeding since the 2nd half of the 20th century forward. A
> comparison with the development of photography as a medium can be helpful
> at this stage. It is still early days in the use of AI for art making?.
>
>
>
> I?ll end by returning to the idea of dangerous science, dangerous art. I
> was struck by the problem of not being able to validate or confirm
> scientific claims reached when AI is involved. Does it come down to a
> matter of truth/not truth, a strong (necessary) binary for scientific
> knowledge of the natural world? Art is not so directly black/white, but
> there still exists some notion of art being ?true? in its honest
> communication or expression of human experience.
>
>
>
> So, what happens now? Is AI potentially a third player, something that
> changes the binary of true/not true with the addition of a third entity
> that does not conform or respond to our means of query or testing, and
> makes decisions and creates on terms unknowable to human experience?
> Our *modern
> *ideas of truth have been based on human experience in/of the natural
> world, and AI is not that. The implications of this are profound, and we?ve
> barely begun to grapple with them. This may be why the use of AI in matters
> of human justice, human life and liberty are so troubling?.and are an
> argument for AI not to be involved in such things. Don?t know, I?m thinking
> out loud here?.
>
>
>
>
>
> ****************************************************************************
>
> Marian Mazzone is an associate professor in the Art & Architectural History
> Department at the College of Charleston, teaching courses on contemporary
> art and new media art. She is an affiliate of the Art & Artificial
> Intelligence Lab at Rutgers University and one of the co-founders of the
> Computing in the Arts major at the College of Charleston.
>
>
>
> http://arthistory.cofc.edu/about-the-department/faculty-and-staff/mazzone.php
> _______________________________________________
> Yasmin_discussions mailing list
> Yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
> http://ntlab.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr
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