The New Real Observatory

An “experiential AI” system and artworks that equip future generations to flourish on a thriving planet in the midst of surprising, joyful, and inclusive forms of intelligent life.

Exploring transformative ideas through art and AI to equip future generations to flourish on a thriving planet in the midst of surprising, joyful, and inclusive forms of intelligent life. The New Real Observatory is a complete “experiential AI” system developed with and for artists and scientists. Artworks by Inés Cámara Leret, Adam Harvey, and Keziah MacNeill present multi-sensory exploration of possible futures and investigate the entanglements of people, data, machines, and environments. Post-Covid we are all digital natives, and we see today a transformative shift arising from an emerging generation of AI technologies that directly engage humans. Recent advances in machine learning based on learning patterns in huge volumes of historic data offer profound new capabilities, although being energy intensive, inscrutable, and can amplify inequality and injustice.

The New Real has set out to understand how AI can augment and be enriched by the arts, and how far data science and the arts can help to answer each other’s questions. The research has investigated next-generation intelligent experiences, low-energy approaches, and creative methods for explainable AI. The artists here specifically explore the construction and artificiality of localized representations of nature generated by AI; the agency and control inherent in certain ways of creating and encoding data; and the speculative point at which the boundaries between humans, machines, and nature blur.

The Overlay

Inés Cámara Leret (ES)

The Overlay is a multi-component artwork that explores construction and artificiality of localized representations of nature. In a multi-channel film, a local hue is fabricated by Spain’s last living colorist and assimilated by the local community in its material form.

Zone System: Sublime Diffusion

Adam Harvey (US/DE)

In this new work, Adam Harvey explores the agency and control inherent in certain ways of creating and encoding data, by transposing labels into different value systems for autonomous vehicles to see the world from the perspective of cyclists, pedestrians, or the natural terrain.

Photographic Cues

Keziah MacNeill (UK)

Photographic Cues explores the future of the photographic image in an algorithmic age, and shows us a speculative future in which features of the natural landscape such as the body of water in a Scottish loch are the only remaining form of analogue lens.

The New Real Pavilion

The New Real (UK)

Visitors to Ars Electronica are invited to a pop-up research hub at The New Real Pavilion for conversations on how the latest developments in autonomous and intelligent systems can enable new forms of creative practice and fuel transformative experiences and services for audiences.

Biography

The New Real is a unique hub for AI, creativity and futures research that extends the extraordinary potential of AI for the arts and brings new perspectives to key challenges in science and society. Experiential AI is our enhanced research field for creative, radically intelligent, immersive, fair, and environmentally sound experiences for the next generation of globally connected audiences. A partnership between the University of Edinburgh, The Alan Turing Institute, and Edinburgh’s Festivals.

Credits

The New Real Observatory is part of The New Real, a partnership between the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh’s Festivals and The Alan Turing Institute. Featured artists Adam Harvey, Inés Cámara Leret, Keziah MacNeill. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) — UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), Towards Turing 2.0 — Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Ars Electronica Garden Edinburgh