From HAL 9000 to ChatGPT: The lives and failures of AI systems
A conversation with Kathryn Blair and Bryan Cera, moderated by Muriel N. Kahwagi
May 8
5:30 PM | Auditorium
What are some of the considerations that emerge from the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in art? What are the broader cultural and societal implications of AI-generated art, including its influence on public perceptions of AI, and the role of emergent technologies in society?
Join us on Wednesday 8 May, 5 PM for an informal conversation on the place that AI occupies in our lives, and its implications across different sectors and forms of labor, from cultural and academic institutions to medical organizations and financial institutions.
Drawing on Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey’s (1968) fictional AI character, HAL 9000, the panel will reflect on the reach and abilities – both real and imagined – of AI systems, asking us to (re)consider just how intelligent artificial intelligence is.
This conversation is programmed in conjunction with Anton Ginzburg: Surface, on view in the Morris & Ann Dancyger Observatory Gallery until June 16, 2024.
Wednesday, May 8
Doors: 5:00 PM
Talk begins: 5:30 PM
Location: Auditorium
FREE with registration.
About the speakers
Kathryn Blair is a PhD candidate in the Computational Media Design program at the University of Calgary. Her work provides contexts in which people can explore the way our societies use algorithmic decision-making through participatory art experiences. She also creates wearable art exploring the relationship between the body and technology using biosensors that control light, sound, and motion. She has participated in the Calgary-based tech fashion show Make Fashion from 2013-2019, and has shown her work in Alberta, British Columbia, China, the US, and Ireland.
Bryan Cera is an artist, designer, and maker from Milwaukee, Wisconsin whose practice explores the intimate and often dysfunctional relationships between humans and their technologies. His studio explorations investigate information and data’s reciprocal relationships to matter and ideas, traversing interactive video installation, wearable electronics, kinetics and robotics, and experimental platforms for digital fabrication. He has contributed to international exhibitions in Australia, Canada, China, Great Britain, Switzerland, and the United States. Cera holds a Bachelor’s in Interdisciplinary Arts, as well as Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Art and Technology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 2016, he founded the Thing Tank – a digital fabrication laboratory dedicated to exploring the integration of emerging technologies into more “traditional” craft and fine arts practices. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Object Making and Emergent Technologies at the Alberta University of the Arts in Calgary, Alberta.
