Mutator VR

What is Artificial Intelligence’s current state of development? How do we interact with AI? And what role does AI play in art? Starting on June 9, 2018 the exhibition PENDORAN VINCI: Art and Artificial Intelligence Today at the NRW Forum Dusseldorf will present compositions by international artists examining Artificial Intelligence's place in the world today. The exhibition is initiated by Leoni Spiekermann and curated by Tina Sauerlaender and Peggy Schoenegge.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) plays a growing role in our lives. We talk to Google, Siri, or Alexa to get the weather forecast or send a message. Pattern recognition systems identify visual forms and serve facial recognition in social media or public surveillance systems. Humanoid robots facilitate daily life, welcome us in hotel lobbies, or take care of elders. AI even generated an exhibition title for us.
At present, AI is mostly programmed to assist and serve humans rather than to create an autonomous individual like the science fiction androids C-3PO in Star Wars or Ava in Ex Machina (2015). The exhibition PENDORAN VINCI – Art and Artificial Intelligence Today points to the current stage of development of AI that forms a part of our society and affects our daily lives. The contemporary artists Nora Al-Badri & Jan Nikolai Nelles (DE), Jonas Blume (DE), Justine Emard (FR), Carla Gannis (US), Sofian Audry & Erin Gee (CAN), Liat Grayver (ISR/DE), Faith Holland (US), Tuomas A. Laitinen (FI), and William Latham (UK) reflect on human interaction with AI and question its effects on our behaviour, social structures, or customs. The artists explore how today’s AI fulfills creative tasks like the creation of artworks and develop their own artistic AI applications.

The AI on neuronaming.net randomly generated the exhibition title PENDORAN VINCI. It evokes Leonardo Da Vinci, the Renaissance painter remembered as a homo universalis, a polymath, and an omniscient sage. In our globally networked society, all knowledge is turned into electronic data and assembled online. Who takes the mastermind's place today? AI generates, structures, and customizes big data. With AI, did we open Pendoran’s, er…, Pandora’s box?