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Arts TRYathlon #1: NextNOW
Arts TRYathlon #1: NextNOW
NextNOW Fest: Opening Reception: The Digital Landscape - Stamp Student Union - September 9, 2024
#exhibition #technology #installation #digitalart #interdisciplinary
The Digital Landscape is a group exhibition of a collection of artists who use technology in several ways to tell stories regarding the physical environment, and how technology can both blur and clear our understanding of the physical. I was particularly drawn to Pollination by Chris Combs, a flower-shaped technical installation, which uses audio-visual expression to project words and pictures. A camera projects your face in a flower-like pattern on a screen (as seen in my pictures), while a microphone transcribes whatever is said into it. The primary message behind the artwork resonated with me, as it aims to describe the all-pervasive nature of technology in our lives, likening it to the pollen of a flower. Every day, we emit thousands of nodes of data, which is cataloged, analyzed, and sometimes sold, all without our knowledge, very similar to how pollen from flowers is flying all around us with murky effects and consequences on our physical beings and environments. I found this message extremely timely, especially in consideration of my major and my specialization within my major. As a Public Policy major with a deep passion for technological policy concerning emerging technologies, much of my coursework reflects the main ideas of Pollination and underscores how deeply unknown the effects of emerging technologies will be on our physical landscape. Specifically, it highlights a fundamental inability to control the way technologies are used and applied, which is a large problem currently being debated in the tech policy world. Pollination showed me how effectively art can be used to tell a seemingly “not-artsy message”, and it was great to see the intersection between my professional and artistic interests delivered in such a thought-provoking manner.
Arts TRYathlon #2: Choose Your Own Adventure
Arts TRYathlon #2: Choose Your Own Adventure
Career Chat: Arts, Humanities & AI - UMD College of Arts and Humanities - October 11, 2024
#artificalintellegence #artandtech #interdisciplinary #careerinart
This Career Chat, sponsored by the UMD College of Arts and Humanities, discussed the implications of the intersections between artificial intelligence (AI) and the Arts and humanities as disciplines and professions. The speaker was Mr. Jack Chen, the founder of Epiphany AI Group, who was also an Arts Scholar and majored in mechanical engineering and studio art. Firstly, I attended this chat because I was interested in the speaker's perspective regarding AI and art. He had a background, an artist who works in AI, that seemingly contradicted itself in my personal view. For context, I’m blatantly against the use of generative AI, and I find how it is programmed and used to be extremely unethical. However, Jack provided an interesting insight when discussing generative AI-created art. He didn’t deny that the capacity for AI to produce art is rapidly increasing, and soon, it is likely to be able to create quality art to rival the quality of human-created art. However, there was one important caveat to that. He said that AI-generated art lacked “direction”. Direction, in this case, refers to the meaning behind the artwork is, and Jack gave a great example of this. Many times, he said, AI-generated art is used as a benchmark or starting point for a project involving it, and then the human using the AI art has to give it purpose. This notion is something that has been reiterated over and over again by Scholars and something I believe in, art must have a given purpose. It doesn’t always have to have an important purpose (art can be candy!), but it must be given a function that is human-centered. AI, because it is a machine, cannot give it that intangible human purpose and direction. Thus, Jack believes, that even with AI-generated art becoming more sophisticated, “art” will never truly die because it can never learn how to give art a direction. This perspective made me change how I perceive the AI-art relationship, and while I still believe AI is dangerous to art, I agree with Jack’s argument, and that perhaps, we must have a well-rounded approach to discussing this relationship as AI evolves further.
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