Creative AI: machine learning as a medium in artistic and curatorial practice

当代艺术机构发现自己处于更广泛的文化反思的前沿，反思具有社会和伦理重要性的关键问题。然而，关于人工智能，文化机构处于一个矛盾的地位：一方面，迫切需要批判性和创造性地反思人工智能的伦理和社会影响，而在这方面，人工智能艺术品发挥着关键作用。另一方面，文化机构往往没有必要的技术知识来支持这类作品的制作，尽管特雷弗·帕格伦或亚当·哈维等艺术家通过批判性地使用和质疑人工智能做出了重要贡献。该项目旨在通过为策展人构建工具和指导来解决这一缺乏策展知识的问题，以促进人工智能领域的机构媒体素养。面对人工智能目前正在对我们的文化和社会产生变革影响的情况，以及以人工智能艺术品为主题的展览对于对这项技术进行批判性和伦理调查以及促进公众迫切需要的理解的核心，我们的项目提出了一个问题：我们如何才能加强对人工智能艺术品的策展知识？为了回答这个问题并研究这种新的艺术媒介缺失的知识，我们的项目将研究人员、艺术家、文化从业者和技术专家聚集在一起，通过连接两个学术机构--KCL和纽约大学--以及位于伦敦和纽约的两个当代艺术机构--蛇形画廊和根茎/新博物馆--的网络，这两个中心都是当代艺术和人工智能。每个机构都在新兴的创意人工智能领域获得了真正的专业知识：2019年7月，蛇形画廊与KCL数字人文部合作成立了创意人工智能实验室，旨在探索人工智能作为艺术家的工具，并更好地了解支持这一新技术的批判性艺术参与所需的数字技能。大约在同一时间，纽约大学的数字理论实验室发起了一项关于人工智能美学的调查，根茎/新博物馆开始为探索人工智能的艺术家提供工作坊。该项目将分两步进行，通过合作研究和一系列讲习班，将这些倡议与它们的真正知识联系起来，使它们更密切地相互对话。首先，该项目将绘制现有的创造性人工智能工具，并解释它们针对策展人和艺术家；并探索人工智能技术如何转变艺术和随之而来的策展实践，以便能够系统地介绍策展人所需的数字技能和知识。在了解了人工智能艺术品生产的各个方面后，该项目将利用这一知识库进行第二步，探索策展人如何将这项新技术的影响转化为批判性但也是创造性的回应。为此，该项目系统地研究了当代人工智能的社会、伦理和美学方面。为了探索和验证上述发现，该项目将设立一个创造性的人工智能实验，与其理论探索并行。与一名软件工程师一起，将构建一个聊天机器人原型，旨在通过一个创新的界面使其人工智能技术的决策过程的各个方面可见；该界面将在交互时揭示决策方面。聊天机器人将根据蛇形画廊的艺术总监汉斯·乌尔里希·奥布里斯特就艺术和文化主题与艺术家、建筑师和思想家进行的采访数据集进行培训。参与该项目的研究人员和合作伙伴分享了这样的见解，即AI技术受益于并需要更多的文化探索。该项目将为馆长提供适当的技能，以支持和询问这项技术。

Contemporary art institutions find themselves at the forefront of a wider cultural reflection on critical issues of social and ethical importance. In relation to Artificial Intelligence, however, cultural institutions are in a paradoxical position: on the one side, there is a pressing need to reflect critically and creatively on the ethical and societal impact of AI, and for this AI artworks play a pivotal role. On the other side, cultural institutions often do not have the necessary technical knowledge to support the production of such works, despite the fact that artists such as Trevor Paglen or Adam Harvey have made important contributions by critically using and questioning AI. This project aims to tackle this lack of curatorial knowledge by building tools and guidance for curators to advance institutional media literacy in AI. Faced with the situation that AI is currently having a transformational impact on our cultures and societies, and given the fact that exhibitions featuring AI artworks are central for delivering critical and ethical inquiries into this technology as well as for advancing a much needed public understanding, our project asks: how can we strengthen curatorial knowledge about AI artworks? To answer this question and research the missing knowledge of this new artistic medium, our project brings together researchers, artists, cultural practitioners and technologists by connecting the networks of two academic - KCL and NYU - and two contemporary art institutions - Serpentine Galleries and Rhizome/New Museum - situated in London and New York, two centres of both, contemporary art and AI. Each institution has gained its own genuine expertise in the emerging field of Creative AI: In July 2019, Serpentine Galleries have founded a Creative AI lab in collaboration with the Department of Digital Humanities, KCL, with the aim of exploring AI as a tool for artists and gaining a better understanding of the digital skills needed to support critical artistic engagement with this new technology. Around the same time, NYU's Digital Theory lab launched an inquiry into AI Aesthetics, and Rhizome/New Museum started to deliver workshops for artists exploring AI. Bringing these initiatives into a closer dialogue with one another by linking up their genuine knowledge through collaborative research and a series of workshops, the project will proceed in two steps. Firstly, the project will map existing creative AI tools and explain them targeting curators and artists; and explore how AI technology transforms artistic and with it curatorial practice, to be able to create a systematic introduction into the digital skills and knowledge curators need. Having understood aspects of production of AI artworks, the project will use this knowledge base for a second step, to explore how curators can translate the impact of this new technology into a critical but also creative response. For this, the project systematically studies the social, ethical, and last but not least the aesthetic aspects of contemporary AI. To explore and verify the above mentioned findings, the project will set up a creative AI experiment that runs parallel to its theoretical explorations. Together with a software engineer, a chatbot prototype will be built, designed intentionally to make aspects of the decision-making process of its AI technology visible through an innovative interface; the interface will reveal decision-making aspects when interacting. The chatbot will be trained on a dataset of interviews which the Serpentine Galleries's Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist has been conducting and recording with artists, architects and thinkers on subjects of art and culture. Researchers and partners participating in this project share the insight that AI technology profits from and needs more cultural exploration. This project will provide curators with the right skills to support and inquire this technology.