CURATORIAL A(I)GENTS

Eight experiments in the computational curation of collections

Curatorial A(i)gents consists in eight machine-learning-based experiments in and around museum collections and data sets developed by members and affiliates of metaLAB (at) Harvard, an idea foundry, knowledge-design lab, and production studio experimenting in the networked arts and humanities.

Designed to be installed into the Harvard Art Museum’s Lightbox Gallery in early 2021, these experiments are being premiered at the Ars Electronica Festival as works in progress. They are as follows:

• A Flitting Atlas of the Human Gaze (Kevin Brewster, Todd Linkner, Dietmar Offenhuber, Jeffrey Schnapp)
• Aixquisite Corpse (Kevin Brewster, Keith Hartwig, Daniel Newman)
• Second Look: Gender and Sentiment on Show (Lins Derry)
• Ocean Amplification (Francisco Alarcon with Stefan Helmreich)
• Surprise Machines (Dario Rodighiero)
• Sympoietic System (Philipp Schmitt)
• Watching Machines Loving Grace (Kim Albrecht)
• This Recommendation System is Broken (Giulia Taurino)

Variously critical, playful, or analytic, metaLAB’s experiments employ the museum’s collections data or related data sets to critical and expressive ends. The names and dates of works and creators; curatorial descriptions and histories of exhibitions; colors and dimensions; images of objects; data regarding the computational and energetic costs of running machine learning programs—encountering such data as these, algorithms chart invisible associations, forge connections, and breed both discovery and monsters.

Registration required, free access: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_1OqrxWZWT6WhPXxFD8ScTQ