Cave Paintings for the AI: Art in the Age of Singularity

In this article, I discuss the possible futures of art and aesthetic experience in the age of non-human agency, machine learning and artificial intelligence. I approach my subject from the point of view of artistic research asking: how will the dawning Singularity experience art, and how could artists take this into account while making art today. First, I will give an outline of the transhuman condition and the theory of Singularity. I’ll present some examples of how biological bodies are merging with technological ones. I then present some previous examples how the theme has been approached in artists previously. I move to suggesting different theoretical tools that might help us in our task and suggest ways to negotiate between living and non-living experience. I present an artistic process of Brains on Art collective and describe a Machine Spectator we are building and some future ideas for the project. Finally, I present some ontological aspects of the machine that have been highlighted during the project.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Kasperi Mäki-Reinikka

Conference

Publication date: May 2018

Publication date (Print): May 2018

Pages: 1-7

Affiliations

[1 ] Aalto University

PL 11000, 00076 AALTO, Finland

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.13

SO-VID: 4bb7bae7-d4bb-4b34-832c-b599681f7234

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: Politics of the Machines - Art and After

Conference acronym: EVA Copenhagen

Conference number: 7

Conference location: Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark

Conference date: 15 - 17 May 2018

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Digital arts and culture

History

Product

1477-9358 BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/EVAC18.13

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

References

F Berardi 2014 And. Phenomenology of the end Aalto ARTS Books Helsinki
N Bostrom 2005 A History of Transhumanist Thought Journal of Evolution and Technology 14 1 1 25
R Braidotti 2013 The Posthuman Polity Press Cambridge
J Brooks 2017 Swedish workers implanted with microchips to replace cash cards and ID passes Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ sweden-workers-microchip-implant-cash-card-id-pass-replace-employee-hand-epicenter-rice-grain-size-a7670551.html 11 June 2018
N Carroll 2001 Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays Cambridge University Press Cambridge
A Clark 2003 Natural-born Cyborgs: Minds Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence Oxford University Press New York
J Dewey 2005 Art as experience Penguin Books New York
G Dickie 1974 Art and the Aesthetic: An institutional analysis Cornell University Press London
I GoodfellowJ Pouget-AbadieM MirzaB XuD Warde-FarleyS OzairA CourvilleJ Bengio 2014 Generative Adversarial Networks eprint arXiv:1406.2661 06 2014
H Grigoris 2017 AI helps judges select top images for EyeEm contest from 590,000 entries Digital Trends https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/eyeem-photography-awards-2017-finalists/ 11 June 2018
M HannulaJ SuorantaT VadénG GriffithsK Kölhi 2005 Artistic research: theories, methods and practices Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki
D Haraway 1991 Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature Routledge New York
M Idato 2015 Netflix's algorithm matches content to eyeballs and is rewriting the TV rulebook The Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-andradio/netflixs-algorithm-matches-content-toeyeballs-and-is-rewriting-the-tv-rulebook-20150731-gintcf.html 11 June 2018
R Kurzweil 2005 The Singularity Is Near Viking Penguin New York
M McLuhan and Q Fiore 1967 The medium is the massage Bantam New York
P K Nayar 2014 Posthumanism Polity Press Cambridge
D Roden 2015 Posthuman Life: Philosophy at the Edge of the Human Routledge New York
M SavranskyA Wilkie and M Rosengarten 2017 The lure of possible futures: on speculative research A WilkieM SavranskyM Rosengarten Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures Routledge New York
A ShajiR Rizk 2017 Systems, methods, and computer program products for searching and sorting images by aesthetic quality United States Patent US 9659384B2
C SzegedyS IoffeV Vanhoucke and A Alemi 2016 Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning eprint arXiv:1602.07261 02/2016
G D Taylor 2014 When the Machine Made Art: the troubled history of computer art Bloomsbury New York
C S Todd 2007 George Dickie 1926– V CostelloJ Vickery Art: key contemporary thinkers Berg New York
K Toyama 2004 Computerized aesthetic judgment of images United States Patent US 6816847B1
L Van der MaatenG Hinton 2008 Visualizing Data using t-SNE Journal of Machine Learning Research 1 2008 1 48
V Vinge 1993 The Coming Technological Singularity Whole Earth Review Winter issue
C Wolfe 2010 What is posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] F Berardi 2014 And. Phenomenology of the end Aalto ARTS Books Helsinki

[2] N Bostrom 2005 A History of Transhumanist Thought Journal of Evolution and Technology 14 1 1 25

[3] R Braidotti 2013 The Posthuman Polity Press Cambridge

[4] J Brooks 2017 Swedish workers implanted with microchips to replace cash cards and ID passes Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ sweden-workers-microchip-implant-cash-card-id-pass-replace-employee-hand-epicenter-rice-grain-size-a7670551.html 11 June 2018

[5] N Carroll 2001 Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays Cambridge University Press Cambridge

[6] A Clark 2003 Natural-born Cyborgs: Minds Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence Oxford University Press New York

[7] J Dewey 2005 Art as experience Penguin Books New York

[8] G Dickie 1974 Art and the Aesthetic: An institutional analysis Cornell University Press London

[9] I GoodfellowJ Pouget-AbadieM MirzaB XuD Warde-FarleyS OzairA CourvilleJ Bengio 2014 Generative Adversarial Networks eprint arXiv:1406.2661 06 2014

[10] H Grigoris 2017 AI helps judges select top images for EyeEm contest from 590,000 entries Digital Trends https://www.digitaltrends.com/photography/eyeem-photography-awards-2017-finalists/ 11 June 2018

[11] M HannulaJ SuorantaT VadénG GriffithsK Kölhi 2005 Artistic research: theories, methods and practices Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki

[12] D Haraway 1991 Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature Routledge New York

[13] M Idato 2015 Netflix's algorithm matches content to eyeballs and is rewriting the TV rulebook The Sydney Morning Herald https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-andradio/netflixs-algorithm-matches-content-toeyeballs-and-is-rewriting-the-tv-rulebook-20150731-gintcf.html 11 June 2018

[14] R Kurzweil 2005 The Singularity Is Near Viking Penguin New York

[15] M McLuhan and Q Fiore 1967 The medium is the massage Bantam New York

[16] P K Nayar 2014 Posthumanism Polity Press Cambridge

[17] D Roden 2015 Posthuman Life: Philosophy at the Edge of the Human Routledge New York

[18] M SavranskyA Wilkie and M Rosengarten 2017 The lure of possible futures: on speculative research A WilkieM SavranskyM Rosengarten Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures Routledge New York

[19] A ShajiR Rizk 2017 Systems, methods, and computer program products for searching and sorting images by aesthetic quality United States Patent US 9659384B2

[20] C SzegedyS IoffeV Vanhoucke and A Alemi 2016 Inception-v4, Inception-ResNet and the Impact of Residual Connections on Learning eprint arXiv:1602.07261 02/2016

[21] G D Taylor 2014 When the Machine Made Art: the troubled history of computer art Bloomsbury New York

[22] C S Todd 2007 George Dickie 1926– V CostelloJ Vickery Art: key contemporary thinkers Berg New York

[23] K Toyama 2004 Computerized aesthetic judgment of images United States Patent US 6816847B1

[24] L Van der MaatenG Hinton 2008 Visualizing Data using t-SNE Journal of Machine Learning Research 1 2008 1 48

[25] V Vinge 1993 The Coming Technological Singularity Whole Earth Review Winter issue

[26] C Wolfe 2010 What is posthumanism? University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis

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