Offline is the new cool. The so-called withdrawal from social media brings us back to so-called real life. When we return home or online, we find ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, having conversations with AI agents. Machines offer advice, guide our work lives, provide affirmation and support, and sometimes even become partners.
At the exhibition I missed our conversation. About AI, emotions, and being humanCurated by Anika Meier in OOR Studio’s Schlachter 151, 20 international artists reflect on artificial intelligence and how we live. Does AI suffer? What does it mean to be happy? What will humans and machines feel in the AI era? How do humans and machines talk to each other? How can humans maintain autonomy?
Artist collective Malpractice and Flynn, the first AI enrolled as a student at an Austrian university, have jointly defined over 50 emotions, including AI sadness, easily envious, AI adolescence, ego collapse, and FOBO (fear of being obsolete). American artist Margaret Murphy can answer with great precision what she would say to her younger self if she could. She interacts with Teen Margaret, a young digital twin of herself trained in her diary. Together, they explore what happiness means through text and images.
Emotions do not need to be reciprocated to be effective. in emotional incubation period A work by American artist Kevin Abosh, they appear on the human side through conversations with ChatGPT. Emotions become the effects of encounters, not machines. Do people actually care whether AI can experience suffering or stress? This is a question explored by American artist David Young.
But what happens when people consciously give up their autonomy, rather than lose it? auto berlin By Lauren Lee McCarthy, Control Becomes a Collective Experience: Voices Empower Systems No One Steers. What we see specifically is how seductive it is to abdicate responsibility.
Artists: Oles Vetier, Kevin Abosch, Vasil Berera, Boris Eldugsen, Joan von Cuberta, Hein Grabenhorst, Gottfried Jaeger, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Flynn by Malpractice, Malpractice, Margaret Murphy, Namae Koi by Mieke Haase, OONA, Franziska Osterman, Elizabeth Sweet, Tamiko Thiel, David Young, Mike Tyka, Erika Weitz.
