The Life of the Senses
2023
To provide a framework for our long-term project of exploring the human-AI relationship, we have defined 3 thematic areas on which we are developing artistic activities that will be accompanied, explored, documented and published by Artistic Research.
URBAN ACUPUNCTURE IN THE AGE OF OMNIPRESENT MEDIA
1) What does the future of analog public space look like - in the age of AI and ubiquitous media? The goal is to explore how the analog place, the urban space, can be designed in the future so that it does not lose its social significance. This also involves exploring what art can do in everyday life - in relation to human perception. Above all, what multisensory art can do for society in a time when people spend most of their time in front of screens and AI systems take over the design. And what then makes art art?
2) How can humans and AI learn together to find new virtu-real answers? At this point, we want to focus on the power of co-creation. This deliberately open and experimental approach is meant to set the project apart from classical artistic formats and underline the innovative claim of the project. It is precisely the direct confrontation with the possibilities - and impossibilities - of a digital AI organism that is also intended to stimulate the human creative spirit. We want to prevent only prefabricated artistic positions from being exchanged at this point. Instead, we would like to see radically new project results.
3) What aesthetic and sensual criteria can we define for the mixture of digital media and analog elements - as we are currently experiencing in the relatively young "immersive art"? The goal is to explore how we can mix art forms to generate sensory experiences that touch us humans holistically through our senses. We are looking for immersive art that people can immerse themselves in holistically, rather than standing in front of artworks and receiving them only as observers. What possibilities does virtu-real space open up here?
The core and driving force of this initiative is to make both the steps of testing and the results of artistic research accessible to a broad public. On the one hand, the project explores the influence of AI on the perception and design of public urban space. On the other hand, the project also explores the influence of people on AI. Both explorations take place primarily through artistic means, interdisciplinary in a Europe-wide consortium of artists, thinkers and cultural practitioners.
In order to make the results accessible not only to experts, it is of great concern to all participants of the consortium to ensure a low-threshold access. Testing new target groups is an essential project goal, as all activities are to take place in public spaces with free access.
To this end, we want to develop a sophisticated cultural education program that aims to turn the project's findings into sensory experiences for a broad public. In order to actually have a social impact beyond the arts and culture sector, we also plan to proactively include marginalized groups, socially less advantaged people and people with special needs. Young people/teens and older people/retirees, who are often left out of innovation and avant-garde, should also be invited into this process. Only in this way can we help the utopia of digital humanism, where technological development is combined with cultural and social innovation, become more present.
As a side effect, so to speak, the perception of contemporary art as a "high cultural agenda" will be changed. Contemporary art does not have to be reserved for certain social classes, but can open up to a concept of art that can be experienced freely and without hurdles in the midst of everyday culture.
© SHA. 2023
