The interface of generative AI presents a passive mode of media production, modeled after the submission of a ticket to a tech stack, or a request for a chatbot helpdesk. What other modes of interaction might artists engage with to get at these tools beyond the keyboard? In a presentation of selected works, the artist, theorist and AI researcher Eryk Salvaggio explores positions, gestures and attitudes toward AI that reflect its brittle comprehension of creative logic and the world at large. This talk will present works and propose novel workflows that challenge ideas of «generativity» by moving it from the visual senses to the body, examining video, performance, dance, and puppetry.
Eryk Salvaggio is a researcher and new media artist interested in the social and cultural impacts of artificial intelligence. His work explores the creative misuse of AI and the transformation of archives into datasets for AI training: a practice designed to expose ideologies of tech and to confront the gaps between datasets and the worlds they claim to represent. A blend of hacker, researcher, designer and artist, he has been published in academic journals, spoken at music and film festivals, and consulted on tech policy at the national level. He is a researcher on AI, art and education at the metaLab (at) Harvard University, the Emerging Technology Research Advisor to the Siegel Family Endowment, and a fellow and top contributor to Tech Policy Press. He holds an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics and an MSc in Applied Cybernetics from the Australian National University.
A cooperation of the DIZH-Bridge Professorship for Digital Cultures and Arts with the Department Fine Arts (DFA) at ZHdK.
The event will be held in English.