In his book On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, Gilbert Simondon warns against our tendency to anthropomorphize and present technical objects as antagonistic. He emphasizes the alienation that results in the loss of knowledge about and control of the tools workers have to deal with as craft are industrialized and automation becomes the prevalent mode of production. (Mass consumption becomes the purpose of production and the utilitarian aspect of technology is at the forefront of capitalism) but for him (contrasting with Marx’s understanding of alienation) it is the lack of understanding of the workings of technical objects that is at the core of this alienation and loss of agency.

As the curator Natalia Fuchs has pointed out in her recent presentation at Mutek Montreal, artists working with AI take on the role of activists, inventors, and researchers as well. (Fuchs 2019)

Artists who make extensive use of technology in their work often precede technological development by many years.

For example, the very influential artists Steina and Woody Vasulka, the video art pioneers used analogue video feedback to create generative art. Video feedback is now cited as an example of deterministic chaos, and the early explorations by the Vasulkas anticipated contemporary science by many years. The Canadian artist David Rockeby is also at the forefront of technological development as demonstrated in his artwork, “the giver of names” and “Very Nervous System.”

The Russian artist Helena Nikonole provides an understanding of how artists appropriate technological algorithms introduced by scientists and “question machine education which, having penetrated all life spheres, is beginning to impact the world around us.” Nikonole observes that “Mass culture suggests scenarios where artificial intelligence appears as a threatening antagonist of humans and the rise of the machines is the most likely course of events following the technological singularity—a hypothetical moment when machine intelligence overcomes human abilities.”

Media artists, she reminds us, “focus our attention on significantly more crucial issues brought about by machine education based on an artificial neuron (which we imply speaking about artificial intelligence today).

Many artists have critical practices pointing to issues we are faced with as the technology is spreading: i.e., the fixity of norms, racial and other bias, etc. such as Mushon Zer-Aviv and Yonatan Ben Simon normalizing machine.  Matthieu Cherubini points to the famous trolley problem and the ethics of automated decisions in his work on “ethical Autonomous Vehicules” and François Quevillon looks at the limitations of computer vision in “Algoryhtmic D ive”. Lauren McCarthy explores the tensions between intimacy and privacy, convenience and agency, and the role of human labour in AI and its potential for the future of automation; Joy Buolamwini points to racial bias embedded in the current AI facial recognition software. Anna Ridler explores speculation in her project Bloemenveiling (2019), interrogating the way technology drives human desire and economic dynamics by creating artificial scarcity. Montreal artist Sofian Audry’s conceptual explorations of AI can also be categorized as speculative explorations. Others like Tom White, François Quevillon, Georgia Ward Dyer and Gregory Chatonsky and the Germano-Japanese artist Hito Steyerl  point to the limitation of the tools when recognizing and classifying images. Jason Lewis and Suzanne Kite are working on ethical guidelines for the creation of AI systems based on protocols inspired by Indigenous ontologies that place man “neither as height nor centre of creation”.

As a Dawson.AI fellow, Bérengère will focus on the work of artists that exemplify the issues and potential of machine learning and computerized automation as examples to contextualize the study of technical tools that constitute what is commonly called Artificial Intelligence.

Bérengère L. Marin-Dubuard (aka beewoo) is a media explorer who likes to experiment with perception in the entangled built and digital architecture through photography, motion graphics, live video processing, tangible media and interactivity. Questions related to agency, control, embodiment and perspective as they are affected by technological development are at the roots of these explorations. She has studied the relationship between the history of cybernetics, computer science, artistic practices and architecture.

beewoo has worked on many projects within collaborations such as Battery Operated and Kit Collaboration.

Focusing on Open Source Software, beewoo instigated and ran artistic creation programs such as Autonomy and Activism and Digital Ludology at the media Centre Studio XX in Montréal. 

beewoo now also teaches in the Interactive Media Arts (I.M.A.) profile at Dawson College.

Her latest work investigates immersive architectural representation and tangible interfaces at the junction between media arts and games.