Gerfried Stocker, Markus Jandl, Andreas J. Hirsch The Practice of Art and AI ARS ELECTRONICA Art, Technology & Society Contents Gerfried Stocker, Markus Jandl, Andreas J. Hirsch 8 Promises and Challenges in the Practice of Art and AI Andreas J. Hirsch 10 Five Preliminary Notes on the Practice of AI and Art 12 1. AI–Where a Smoke Screen Veils an Opaque Field 19 2. A Wide and Deep Problem Horizon– Massive Powers behind AI in Stealthy Advance 25 3. A Practice Challenging and Promising– Art and Science Encounters Put to the Test by AI 29 4. An Emerging New Relationship–AI and the Artist 34 5. A Distant Mirror Coming Closer– AI and the Human Condition Veronika Liebl 40 Starting the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab 44 Scientific Partners 46 Experiential AI@Edinburgh Futures Institute 48 Leiden Observatory 50 Museo de la Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero Centro de Arte y Ciencia 52 SETI Institute 54 Ars Electronica Futurelab 56 Scientific Institutions 59 Cultural Partners 61 Ars Electronica 66 Activities 69 Projects 91 Artists 101 CPN–Center for the Promotion of Science 106 Activities 108 Projects 119 Artists 125 The Culture Yard 130 Activities Contents Contents 132 Projects 139 Artists 143 Zaragoza City of Knowledge Foundation 148 Activities 149 Projects 155 Artists 159 GLUON 164 Activities 165 Projects 168 Artists 171 Hexagone Scène Nationale Arts Science 175 Activities 177 Projects 182 Artists 185 Kersnikova Institute / Kapelica Gallery 190 Activities 192 Projects 200 Artists 203 LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial 208 Activities 210 Projects 226 Artists 231 Le lieu unique 237 Activities 239 Onassis Stegi 242 Activities 243 Projects 255 Artists 261 Science Gallery Dublin 265 Activities 266 Projects 279 Artists 285 SOU Festival / SOC Festival 287 Waag 291 Activities 293 Projects 299 Artists 303 Imprint Preface 6 The Practice of Art and AI European cultural projects give us an As a result of the Covid−19 pandemic, new opportunity to formulate new, concrete exhibition formats have now emerged that answers to the major challenges facing provide exclusive insights into the fields and European society and to experiment with environments of the participating artists. them. The European ARTificial Intelligence The results of the interdisciplinary exchange Lab initiated by Ars Electronica is that kind between art and science can be seen in this of project. It brings together 13 cultural publication, which summarizes what the AI institutions for productive and exciting work Lab has achieved in three years. I would like to on the questions currently surrounding artificial thank all participating artists and institutions for intelligence. their participation and their inspiring output. Funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe Program, the AI Lab addresses visions, expectations and fears that we associate with artificial intelligence and builds on the European Digital Art and Science Network, a creative collaboration between scientific institutions, Ars Electronica, and cultural partners from all over Europe. Guided by the core idea of Human−Centered Innovation, the focus is Andrea Mayer always on people. State Secretary for Arts and Culture 7 Promises and Challenges in the Practice of Art and AI Gerfried Stocker, Markus Jandl, Andreas J. Hirsch Artificial intelligence (AI)–an umbrella Electronica has developed into an ecosystem term (though a somewhat vague and that offers artists and researchers manifold misleading one) encompassing many different opportunities to work in transdisciplinary technologies–is everywhere. Throughout teams at the intersection of art and science. the history of media art, artists have eagerly Consequently, in 2015 Ars Electronica–with approached new technologies and explored support from the European Union–formed the their potentials and limits, as well as their European Digital Art and Science Network as implications for society. Experimental and an unprecedented collaboration of scientific critical enquiry of this kind is also at the core of and cultural institutions across Europe. The aim Ars Electronica, which Hannes Leopoldseder was to facilitate a project−oriented residency (1940 - 2021) co−founded in 1979 as a program that would bring artists and scientists “Festival for Art, Technology, and Society.” together. Clearly, it is only in such international Since then, over more than four decades, Ars cooperative relationships that the momentum 8 for substantial impulses to break new ground was also the setting for Mahler Unfinished, can be realized. It seems noteworthy that a collaboration between Ars Electronica several of the scientific partners in the Futurelab key researcher and composer Ali European Digital Art and Science Network Nikrang, an AI-based generative system for were institutions that had been founded on the composition and the Bruckner Orchestra Linz basis of alliances between several European conducted by Markus Poschner, where the states, which were only able to create such unfinished Symphony No. 10 by Gustav Mahler massive infrastructures for research by was presented in a completed version for the joining together: the Large Hadron Collider of first time. Besides establishing a new Prix Ars CERN near Geneva, the European Southern Electronica category for “Artificial Intelligence Observatory (ESO), located in Chile, and the and Life Art,” 2019 also saw the start of the European Space Agency (ESA). While the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab, which is more recent international trend seems to lead the reason for this book about “The Practice of back to the egoism of nation states, the spirit Art and AI.” of collaboration over competition is still of The book combines a documentation of paramount importance to our mutual efforts to artistic projects presented within the European support encounters between art and science, ARTificial Intelligence Lab and beyond including the new field of “Art and AI.” with many voices, both artists and experts, In 2017, the same year we published “The discussing the most burning questions the Practice of Art and Science” as a first account practice of AI and art has raised so far. of the experiences and lessons from the work “The Practice of Art and AI” strives to give of the Digital Art and Science Network, the an account of the current state of affairs Ars Electronica Festival was devoted to the surrounding artistic work with AI, the challenges topic “AI–The Other I,” which allowed for a and constraints of such work, and the broad broader view of artistic approaches to the spectrum of approaches that have emerged. dynamic developments in the technologies This is a highly dynamic field, where the around machine learning and neural networks. technology itself advances at breathtaking When the Ars Electronica Center initiated the speed, while the efforts to interpret and comprehensive thematic redesign in 2019, the understand what is actually going on are in exhibition “Understanding Artificial Intelligence” constant flux. What has become clear in the played a key role in the effort to provide a meantime is the urgent necessity of supporting broader public with an informed view of those further artistic work with AI, since expertise new technologies and their far-reaching and from engineering and policymaking alone will often problematic implications for all areas not be able to shape a humane and sustainable of modern life. The exhibition “AI x Music” use of AI in the future. Efforts in this area (Artificial Intelligence meets Music) focused are also part of Ars Electronica’s role in the on the encounter between artificial intelligence European initiative for a “Digital Humanism” and and music, and on human creativity and a “New Digital Deal,” which is the theme of the technical perfection. While “Understanding Ars Electronica Festival 2021. All of this calls AI” laid the educational groundwork for for the innovative potential of artists and their approaching AI, the year 2019 saw further ability to ask unexpected, but most relevant groundbreaking activities in this field at Ars questions. However, encouraging a broader Electronica. Under the thematic umbrella “AI and deeper involvement of a rising number of x Music,” Ars Electronica continued its long artists in this arena will require sustained and tradition of highlighting the interplay of music intensified efforts and funding from public and technologies by presenting a wide range institutions if we want the practice of Art and of innovative music projects using AI, both at AI to flourish. The promising outcomes from the Monastery of St. Florian and at the POST the European ARTificial Intelligence Lab and CITY in Linz, complemented by a symposium the critical inputs from this publication may with leading experts from that field. The Big serve as a contribution to inspire and stimulate Concert Night of the 2019 Ars Electronica further artistic work and future humane uses Festival at the Gleishalle of the POST CITY of AI. 9 10 Five Preliminary Notes on the Practice of AI and Art Andreas J. Hirsch For Lady Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815 - 1852), considered the first computer programmer, and for Hannes Leopoldseder (1940 - 2021), co−founder of Ars Electronica, two pioneers in the field between art and science, connected across the ages by their shared passion for computer technology as well as–paradoxical as it may seem–for Romanticism. 11 1. AI–Where a Smoke Screen Veils an Opaque Field A phantom is roaming around the world, visible at certain points, but mostly hidden from plain sight, moving stealthily into every area of life and work, and into every private recess. It comes in the guise of the epitome of progress, promising increased efficiency and profit to some, absolute control and power to certain others, and commodities to the masses. Some see it as the harbinger of doom for humankind, a Pandora’s box of self-destruction now opened and impossible to close again. Artists are attracted by this phantom, begin exploring its profoundly alien behavior, and experience its invasion of even the most exclusive realms of artistic creation, so far deemed to be one of the last reserves of what makes humans human.