working through my thoughts

I want this project to remind us that everything that we create is a reflection of who we are. When we talk about tech we talk about progress and specs and consequences. When we talk about art we talk about emotion and expression and identity. I appreciate this separation. Tech can be flawed and human (and powerful in the ways that humans are) and art can possess some degree of magic, an untraceable superhuman muse factor. With this project, I want to challenge that comfortable separation.

I don’t think that this separation can be bridged by “tech art”, which can be limited to commentary on medium (rather than expressing a thought through paint, you express it through Paint.net). I want to encourage conversation around the sameness of everything created. Are there not the same dangers behind a piece of art as there are behind an AI system? They both are created out of biases and perspectives, and maybe its the distinction between the two (the authority/factuality of AI outputs vs the subjectivity/humanness of artistic expression) that enforce the power that harmful AI systems harness.

Spatial arrangement sketch

There is an arrangement of three tables in a “u” shape. On one side rest tools for art-creation (making a song, especially intimate through the physical instruments (synthesizer, tape recorder, external mic)). On the other side are tools to train a machine-learning system (keyboard, webcam, mouse). On the table at the end are two screens, one to process and play back the audio that you recorded, another to impliment the AI training set.

This presentation of my idea feels pretty on-the-nose (maybe not even in the right direction) but I think it is far enough down the road of my thinking to get feedback and re-direction.

where I need help

  • I don’t have experience with training sets or machine learning, so I could use some suggestions for pre-existing programs or skeletons to build off of.

  • I had trouble finding the right kind of theory to base this piece off of. A lot of AI thoughts that I found were based around machines, and I don’t know a way to argue that a piece of art is a physical machine.