THE FUTURE OF AI: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ASPECTS

Online lecture series

Sanja Bojanić (Academy of Applied Arts and Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe, University of Rijeka)

New materiality and old syntax under the skin of Ed Atkins:

Aesthetics and grammar of contemporary artistic languages

New elements of grammar in contemporary artistic expression include various forms of coding. Following the age-old scholastic postulate according to which “art is the right reason of things to be made,” I use the example of Ed Atkins’ art pieces, his“renders,” in particular from his 2016 work “Safe Conduct,” to first elaborate the elements of his artistic expression, and then present the reasons and particularities of grammar in creation: an artistic practice necessarily drawing on new technologies, and entire worlds of new devices that alter, modify, warp or straighten “the right reason of things to be made.”

Mapping the possibilities of new tools (CGI, AI, Facialschift Real Time, etc.) and their capacity to build new aesthetics, I identify what is irretrievably lost in the “old” artistic syntax, and how it survives and is reborn in this new creative process. The main challenge of Ed Atkins’ artistic practice is the “right reason” of the constitution and de/constitution of the meaning of things through an immaterial approach to their old materiality.

Sanja Bojanić is a researcher immersed in the philosophy of culture; media and queer studies, with an overarching commitment to comprehend contemporary forms of gender, racial, and class practices, which underpin social and affective inequalities specifically increased in the contemporary societal and political contexts. She studied philosophy and tailored her interests at the University of Paris 8, where she obtained an M.A. in Hypermedia Studies at the Department of Science and Technology of Information, and an M.A. and Ph.D. at Centre d’Etudes féminines et d’etude de genre, a process that ultimately led to interdisciplinary research based on experimental artistic practices, queer studies, and particularities of Affect Theory. Her research and scientific work are fostered through various projects funded by EU Commission and private foundations. Author and editor of several books and manuals, she published over thirty peer-reviewed papers on topics related to her field of expertise.

This lecture is a part of The Future of AI: Social and Cultural Aspects online lecture series that brings international experts to discuss the philosophy of AI, AI and post-digital aesthetics, cultural impacts of AI, AI (in) art, non-human agency, AI-driven social transformations, and, more generally, our coexistence with AI and digital technologies in all aspects of daily life. The series is organized by the Digital Society Lab [DigLab] of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory.