I enjoyed reading the series of research papers this week. The academic research paper is a totally different format than I am used to, and provides a different perspective and approach. I definitely took issue with Bo et al’s rigid, systematic approach to “beauty” and “ugliness”. I think there are many problematic aspects that could arise in these biases, and it is crucial to think through the foundations of thoughtfully and ethically training AI. I think artists/philosophers and scientists/engineers are a critical balance on each other in this regard. Michel Serres wrote very poetically about this synthesis between Art and Science in what he termed the
Northwest Passage. Galanter straddles this line really well, as both an artist and academic. I particularly appreciated his delineation of not classifying Pollock as a
generative artist, because such a leap would universalize the term
generative art to the point of no return, where it is completely meaningless and useless as a term. I was definitely starting to go down that track thinking about physics, fluid dynamics, and velocity as generative systems, but Galanter reminds us that: “All artwork has underlying physics, and if that were the measure then all art would have to be called generative art.” I wonder if physics engines in computer modeling could still be considered generative systems, because artists often tweak the parameters of physics engines to get bizarre and uncanny effects. Galanter's paper reminds us that sometimes rigidity and classification are vital to effective classification, and as artists we can overthink it.
Dina Kelberman,
I’m Google (2011-ongoing), website,
https://dinakelberman.tumblr.com/
In our discussion of
computational aesthetics, computer vision, and machine learning, I couldn’t help but think of artist Dina Kelberman’s long running tumblr,
I’m Google (2011-ongoing). Kelberman's endlessly evolving image set appears to be AI generated, but she meticulously scoured Google Images for over a decade to string together images that cascade together in mesmerizing, bizarre, and surprising ways. The string of images are literally linear, but they also function in non-linear and abstract forms of relation, which relate to the “diachrony” and “synchrony” we would later discuss in John Baldessari’s work. In a way, she is collaborating with the Google Image search algorithm—playing a role of aesthetic mediation—but she also critiques the algorithm and has designed her own work arounds to use the search engine as a creative tool. Her process speaks to the aesthetic value of
order, within the equally interesting systems of
noise and
chaos we have previously discussed. Her project really makes me think about how much human sensibilities and biases are either present or absent, reflected or omitted, within AI systems.
Sarah Rosalena Balbuena-Brady,
ABOVE BELOW, AI-generated textile, cotton, training: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite images taken from High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), 2020, 60 x 80 in
I also thought of Professor Sarah Rosalena Balbuena-Brady’s work
ABOVE BELOW (2020) in relation to the discussion of the Jacquard Loom, and her project
Deformation of 50,000 Letters (2017) in relation to Bo et al’s analysis of Chinese letterforms in their paper
Computational aesthetics and applications. Balbuena-Brady’s most recent exhibition
ABOVE BELOW, exhibited at Blum & Poe Los Angeles, features a series of AI-generated textiles that use a neural network trained on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter satellite images taken from High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE). In her thoughtful essay published on Fulcrum Arts, Balbuena-Brady states:
I am engaged with computation and fiber art in relation to the Jacquard loom because of its relationship to image production. The first computer algorithm was written by Ada Lovelace while she observed its capability to weave intricate flowers and leaves. The exchange between imaging and the loom untangle contemporary understandings of mapping by materializing computation.
Similarly, woven geospatial imagery on the Jacquard loom embodies the computer’s earthly origin from cotton thread to pixel and around again—a web of the past and future geographies. AI-generated textiles reveal a tactile connection with the pixels it signifies, tracing its production, operating between reality/artificiality and material/immaterial, and back again.
Balbuena-Brady’s connection to Ada Lovelace, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, algorithms, and the pixelation of botanical forms finds interesting resonance with both Anna Ridler and Hito Steyerl’s exploration of machine learning and speculative botany. Both Ridler and Steyerl critically examine the problematic history of British statistician Ronald Fisher's ubiquitous data set. To quote Ridler:
The iris flower dataset, created by British statistician Ronald Fisher, contains 50 samples of 3 different irises and is used as an example for many statistical classification techniques in machine learning. It is included in the package Scikit-learn so that every machine learning programme that uses this package also contains within it somewhere a hidden flower dataset. This unexpected link brings the installation into the history of machine learning. But by referencing Fisher, I am also referencing the fact that he was also heavily involved in racism and eugenics (foreshadowing perhaps some of the inherent problems with machine learning, bias and datasets). Even something as simple as a flower contains within it hidden layers and narratives.
Anna Ridler,
Myriad (Tulips) (2018) C-type digital prints with handwritten annotations, magnetic paint, magnets, ink
Hito Steyerl, installation view of
This is the Future / Power Plants, 2019, in “I Will Survive” at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, 2020. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2020. Photo by Achim Kukulies. Courtesy of Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Links:
Dina Kelberman “I’m Google” :
https://dinakelberman.tumblr.com/
https://www.wired.com/2013/04/dina-kelberman-im-google/
Sarah Rosalena Brady :
https://www.fulcrumarts.org/above-below/
https://www.sarahrosalena.com/reformati ... 00-letters
https://www.sarahrosalena.com/water-lines
Ada Lovelace:
https://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/adalovelace/
Anna Ridler “Myriad (Tulips)” :
http://annaridler.com/myriad-tulips
Hito Steyerl discusses “Power Plants” :
https://youtu.be/1v08U5-BKnE
Hito Steyerl’s lecture at MIT Wasserman Forum (to be uploaded soon) :
https://www.wassermanforum2021.com/videos
Additional Links:
Oliver Laric “Versions” :
https://anthology.rhizome.org/versions
Rhizome Net Art Anthology:
https://anthology.rhizome.org/
Meant to share this when we were discussing pixels:
Daniel Rozin :
https://youtu.be/kV8v2GKC8WA