Academy of Thoughts

Critical Data

Martin Zeilinger (AT/UK)

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Linz, Kunstuniverstität Linz, Hauptplatz
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Critical Data at the Academy of Thoughts

Are we witnessing a coming of “creative AI,” and the emergence of a data science that will overcome the existential perils of the Anthropocene? Or is AI, as some are warning, about to emancipate capital from humanity (rather than the other way around)? Building on the concept of algorithmic adjudication and its manifestations in tools such as AI-based digital rights management systems, this talk explores tactical uses of AI through which artists critique and disrupt the outsourcing of codified decision-making to computational agency.

In the context of ACADEMY OF THOUGHT, we ask ourselves what critical data might be and mean in the context of an art university? In business and computer science, it is defined that critical data must be identified in order to improve sales and product quality. If we leave the idea of economic success behind and focus on society and ecology, how can we understand critical data in an arts setting?

Martin Zeilinger (AT/UK): Martin Zeilinger is an Austrian researcher and curator based in Scotland, where he works as Senior Lecturer in Computational Arts and Technology at Abertay University. His research focuses on artistic and activist experimentation with emerging technologies. Tactical Entanglements, a monograph on AI art, creative agency, and the limits of intellectual property, was recently published with meson press. Martin’s work on digital art in relation to AI and/or blockchain is widely available in books including Artists Re:Thinking the Blockchain and MoneyLab Reader 2, and published/forthcoming in journals such as Philosophy & Technology, Culture Machine, Leonardo, and Media Theory.

Credits

Akademie der Gedanken (Academy of Thoughts): Manuela Naveau