Circle inside a square below a triangle at De Appel - with Mariana Lanari

 

9:30 – Open, Coffee/ Tea in de Appel Lounge
9:45 – 10:45, Participants presentations 
10:45 – 11:00, Break – move towards exhibition space de Aula 
11:00 – 11:30, Presentation by Mariana Lanari  
11:30 – 12:00, Exploration (solo or as you choose) of Mariana Lanaris Exhibition

 

Machine learning/ A.I. has advanced with astounding momentum; capable of analysing and responding to human input more than ever before. And art researchers are experimenting with these capabilities. Several Open A.I. models allow for anyone within all fields of enquiry to co-create/ co-research on thematics that might seemingly be unrelated to the tool in itself. Machine learning has found its way into the culture of research practices, and in that way creates an emergent field of knowledge-power, of data extraction and colonialism, of capital accumulation, automation and control, as something that demands critical and artistic attention.

 

For ARIAS it has created a question, or better yet, a route of inquiry and need to create space for all to take a collective step backwards and consider the meaning making of implementing machine learning technologies into research methodologies and practices. Running with a driving question of: What is that relationship humans have with machines in art-research related practices?

 

For this third edition of ARIAS A.I. x Arts x Humanities participatory programme, circle inside a square below a triangle, senses turn towards the devices that sense back. Several researchers from across the ARIAS network meet to first discuss ongoing art research projects involving A.I./ machine learning. With presentations this time around by Tomo Kihara, Marina Orlova, Špela Petrič, Martina Raponi, Saskia Robben and Roman Tkachenko. Followed by an invitation by art researcher Mariana Lanari to venture through her current exhibition hosted by de Appel named ‘Catching Up in the Archive’, showcasing the evolving infrastructure of de Appel Archive. Displaying more than 16,000 objects, Lanari launches an interactive online environment, a live data-base, which collects and digitises the consciousness of the collective community. Mariana presents what she refers to as ‘slow a.i.’, forward ‘artificial human-ness’ that isn’t shy from making human mistakes, and reaches beyond the tech norms of having the most efficient and optimised data-base.

 

 

About the programme

 

Circle inside a square below a triangle is an ongoing A.I. x Arts x Humanities participatory programme, hosted by ARIAS that started back in 2019. Artists, writers, researchers, archivists, philosophers, engineers, from across the five ARIAS partners, offer thoughts and reflections to one another on their research practices involving A.I./ machine learning.

 

Some questions in contemplation from participants include: What can we learn from experiments in automating art? How can artists develop meaningful joint practices with machines? What is the obsession with ‘intelligence’, in terms of computing, ordering, ranking and measuring? Can machines be modelled on something other-than-human (or more-than-human) ‘intelligence’?

 

Through these meet-ups the ARIAS network have the chance to talk about current ongoing projects, feedback, reflect, and respond to others projects from outside of their own institution, and outside of formal academic environments. For example, feedback is encouraged in these sessions to also come from feeling and memory. In the past these meet-ups have been convened together alongside: ARRG artistic research research group (UvA), Sandberg Instiuut Media Lab (SI), Visual Methodologies Collective (HvA). And for this occasion with associate partner de Appel.

 

About the artist

 

Mariana Lanari is an artist, co-founder of Archival Consciousness, and Ph.D. candidate at the Amsterdam School of Heritage, Memory, and Material Cultures, University of Amsterdam. Lanari’s practice is invested in studying and intervening in processes of physical and digital mediation in cultural libraries and archives. Catching Up in the Archive is the outcome of Lanari’s long-term collaboration with De Appel and her research into the design and development of customised applications of semantic and graph technology applications that are sensitive to the institution’s history and the existing relational database. Lanari’s visionary and socially committed practice has been recognised both in the Netherlands and internationally.The exhibition builds on her ongoing research projects, previously presented at Casa do Povo, São Paulo, in 2019 and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2015–2016.

 

About de Appel

 

Founded in 1975 in Amsterdam, this evolving arts centre has a unique threefold structure combining a living Archive; a hands-on Curatorial Programme; and Education Initiatives that arise from deep community engagement. Our varied public programming serves and learns with people of different backgrounds and perspectives in an atmosphere of hospitality, cooperation and experiment. Together we give shape to a dynamic sense of art and culture in our worldly city.