VORTRAG

Fundamental Frequencies

11. April 2019, 10.15 Uhr Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1, DO.03.27

Interface Cultures lädt im Rahmen der Interface Culture Invited Lecture Series zum Gastvortrag von Memo Akten. As machines become 'smarter', more autonomous and ubiquitous, how does this impact human creativity, or the role of the artist? In this talk, I'll briefly cover some of my own investigations in this field with examples spanning research, sketches and artworks; particularly within the context of recent developments in machine (and deep) learning. These include i) explorations in real-time, interactive computational systems to augment artistic expression; ii) semi-autonomous, learning systems with continuous, meaningful human control, for collaborative co-creation; iii) thinking about machine learning algorithms (and computational perspectives in general) as a means to reflect on ourselves and how we make sense of the world; what (and who) we choose to value and why; our own self-affirming cognitive biases and prejudices; our inability to see the world from others’ points of view and empathise with those that we disagree with; and the resulting social and political polarisation and gaping wounds in our societies. In short, I'll be oscillating around the blurry lines between Waves, and Gods. "The journey for each of us begins here. We’re going to explore the cosmos in a ship of the imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies. It can take us anywhere in space and time. Perfect as a snowflake, organic as a dandelion seed, it will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts. Come with me." - Carl Sagan. memo.tv/info