There is currently a lot of enthusiasm about the use of AI in cultural practices. Generative media is nothing new, and today's AI tools could be seen in the direct lineage of algorithmic techniques used in art, music, and design since the eighties. Is it really the same though? Also why should we care? Can we pause the prompting hype for a sec and discuss a bit what's going on?
Previously on Traces of Power (TOP), we took a deep dive into the data centre industrial complex, from discussing how a super computer works, to giving an overview of the organisations taking care of the network infrastructure internationally, and also present some of their greenwashing tactics, and the complete lack of political transparency when it comes to the construction of their facilities. In this new episode, we will offer insights on a growing and hyped application of such computational infrastructure: AI. Not any kind of AI of course, we are particularly interested into the one that's promising security and creativity at any cost — environmental, social, democratic, and cultural.
As with every edition of Traces of Power, we invite three guests who will give us some perspectives on the topic and converse with the audience. This time we have the pleasure to welcome Femke Snelting (TITiPI), Dasha Ilina, and Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo.
There are many logical objections to AI, from its corrosive effects on the world around us to the corrosive ontologies it propagates within us. But have you considered that it makes ugly art, too? And perhaps by making cool art, we can inhabit a manner of resistance that is comprehensible outside logic and rationality? Let's consider together.
Sarah Groff Hennigh-Palermo (US) is an artist, programmer, and erstwhile data designer. Her work focuses on using the digital in a manner that can transcend its squalid and militaristic roots and reach out towards the sublime. She has created data-obscured art sites, new computer languages, and hybrid nostalgia machines.
https://art.sarahghp.com
https://post.lurk.org/@sarahghp
My Magical Grilled Cheese Sandwich Recipe is a response to the recently adopted machine learning-based surveillance technology in France. In light of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic games happening across France, the French government has put in place an algorithmic video surveillance which automatically detects “abnormal activity” - a category which is defined by the various private startups and tech firms providing this technology to the state. This new and automatised form of surveillance puts in danger already marginalised groups, while limiting their access to the public space. Dasha’s project gives an insight into the questionable processes behind algorithmic surveillance.
Dasha Ilina (RU) is a techno-critical artist based in Paris, France. Through the employment of low-tech and DIY approaches her work highlights the nebulous relationship between our desire to incorporate modern technologies into our daily lives and proposed social imperatives for care of oneself and others. Her practice engages the public in order to facilitate a space for the development of critical thought regarding our modern day relationships, privacy in the digital age, and the reflexive contemporary desire to turn to technology for answers.
http://dashailina.com
https://post.lurk.org/@dasha
So-called AI currently saturates all technological imaginary. It is hard to not domesticate its expansionist, extractivist and financialized modes, even when critically engaging with it. This contribution opens the Pandora’s box of software-operated hardware, starting from the high density chips produced by NVIDIA, tailored for computing AI. Upholding that "no politics or hierarchy stands in the way of inventing the future", the company sells these chips for usage across game graphics, 5G telecommunication, medical devices and military drones. How to divest from a computer industry that is complicit in organized violence at borders and in occupied territories, and is responsible for warming our pockets? How to not feel overwhelmed by our own complicity while making actual incisions in the industrial continuum of the carefully constructed unavoidability of so-called Artificial Intelligence?
Femke Snelting (NL) develops projects at the intersection of publishing, feminisms, and free software. In various constellations she works on re-imagining computational practices to disinvest from technological monoculture. With Miriyam Aouragh, Seda Gürses, Jara Rocha and Helen Pritchard she runs The Institute for Technology in the Public Interest, a trans-practice gathering of activists, artists, engineers and theorists.