Slow AI Material Playgrounds

Slow Mycelial Technological Myths

 

with Janine Armin and Mariana Fernandez Mora

 

In the inaugural session of the Material Playgrounds, we contemplated technology’s own particular stories of creation in an attempt to reimagine the birth of AI through a lens of slowness and collectivity.

 

Beginning with a reading and discussion of Anna Tsing’s The Mushroom at the End of the World, we shared personal stories of creation and engaged with exercises on imagining new myths for our technological future.

 

From Science To Séance

 

with Dorin Budușan and Sofia Fernandez Blanco (September 2024)

 

This session aimed to question the divide between divination and algorithmic prediction, explore the meaning of collective interpretation, and uncover the complex material basis of all systems of thinking.

 

With the help of Sofia and Dorin, we collectively created our own divination system based on a combination of common astrological elements and personal contributions. The system was then put in use, and everyone could ask some of their most pressing questions while we formulated the answers together.

 

 

Images as Allies: Archiving, Storytelling, and the Power of Digital Memory

 

with Elki Boerdam (October 2024)

 

This was a day filled with inspiring tales and narratives, speculating on what it’s like to be an image. We explored the power images hold to shape the ways we see the world and the kinds of stories that can emerge when they encounter one another.

By creating personal imaginaries, we considered how preserving the strange, uncanny, unwanted, irrelevant, “low-quality,” or even ugly images allows us to embrace and remember the parts of ourselves that share those qualities. In an increasingly curated digital world, this act of preservation becomes an act of resistance—standing against the predictive nature of online life.

 

 

Slow AI x Archival Consciousness

 

with Mariana Lanari and Nell Donkers (December 2024)

 

In this workshop we entered into the library of De Appel and tuned ourselves into the rythm of its archive to speculate on the reality of data, the temporality of the physical, and the fragility of the digital.

 

After discussing and creating our own vocabulary for concepts such as data, archive, and knowledge, we immersed ourselves into the archive of De Appel, getting hands-on experience of its inner workings, its methods of digitalisation through Archival Consciousness, and experiencing the slow process of creating unique pieces of data.