February 20, 2025 • 50 mins
Alfredo Cramerotti and Auronda Scalera are a curatorial duo specialising in art and technology, dedicated to bridging digital and contemporary art.
#metaverse #AI #digitalart #newtechnologies
We either speak over-enthusiastically about AI or in fear of its impact on creativity. My guests stand somewhat in between, advocating for a better understanding of its potential as a tool which they base upon their experiences with artists. The latter have always been irreverent regarding technologies since pigment was blown onto a hand leaving its mysterious mark on a cave wall… So what happens now, with the metaverse, AI and virtual reality? Are these new exhibition spaces? And how to they affect the existing ones?
Our discussion took us to lots of places, amongst which the installation created by artist duo Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, THE CALL for the Serpentine, which enabled spectators to interact with an AI who had trained with choirs across the UK; we talk about artists who connect writing with sculpture, performance, and new technologies, such as Ana María Caballero, (who just sold a poem in an online auction of Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions called Natively Digital, for 0.28 Bitcoin or $11,430 at Sotheby’s), and much more. I also mention the great Jan Hopkins, an artist and writer based in Sheffield.
Cramerotti and Scalera both teach at MA IESA University Paris & Kingston University London. They co-curated the Lumen Prize x Sotheby's plus this year and the Art Dubai Digital Section 2024. As a duo, they form the International Selection Committee of the Lumen Prize and work as nominators for the Maxxi-Bvlgari Prize for Digital Art. While co-directing Multiplicity-Art in Digital, an online platform promoting women artists with a focus on diversity and inclusion, they spearhead Web to Verse, a project dedicated to fostering research on the evolution of digital art from the 1960s to the present day.
This multifaceted profile has led them to speak at prestigious events such as the UK House of Lords’ All-Party Parliamentary Group, the House of Beautiful Business, the AI House (during the World Economic Forum), the Riyadh Art Program for the KSA Visual Art Commission. They have worked with the UK Government Art Collection, the British Council Visual Arts Acquisition Committee, the Italian Ministry of Culture for the Italian Council 2022-24 program, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hello. Hi.
Thank you so much for tuning in.Welcome to this episode, which
is a guest episode where I talked to a curating duo who
specializes in new technologies.And I have to say this
conversation was really impactful.
My perspective was shifted and that was because we didn't come
(00:29):
from a place of dread or from a place of fear and prejudice.
We didn't talk about robot ladies with bad wigs that can
paint. We talked about the reality that
is here. So while I'm recording this, an
AI is cleaning my sound, it is producing snapshots, and it is
transcribing what I'm saying. So we talked about that.
(00:53):
We talked about those tools, about the metaverse, about so
many things that surround us or that potentially will very soon
and that artists are already using.
The exciting part about this episode is that Alfredo and
Aranda, so my two guests, know about concrete examples of
(01:16):
artists using these technologiesin ways that are really
compelling and really exciting, and there are real artistic
experiences and it really will change your mind.
Leave me a comment if it didn't.This is kind of a dare almost.
I'm really, really happy to haveexpanded into video, into new
(01:38):
guests, although Emily's coming back in March and I'm very, very
happy about the exhibition that we're going to talk about.
I'm also on Sub Stack, by the way, started writing shorter
texts again, and it's really exciting.
So there's lots of ways for you to financially help.
You can use the Blink that I have in the show's notes or in
(02:01):
my website, exhibitionistpodcast.com,
whatever suits you. There is so many ways for you to
help and a small donation. I don't ask for big donations,
although of course I'm not allergic to them.
And to those who can't, they will be supported by you because
I want to create accessible content.
(02:21):
That is my ethos and that's whatI believe in.
So episodes will always be therefor everyone.
So those who can contribute, well, you will be helping those
who cannot, you will make them feel better in knowing that I am
getting paid for my work. That's it.
That is my duty done. So go ahead and listen to this
(02:45):
wonderful and intriguing, compelling and exciting and
impactful conversation with Alfredo Gramerotti and out on
that camera. Hello and welcome to
(03:06):
Exhibitionists, the podcast where we visit exhibitions so
that you have to or where we invite guests that expand the
notion of exhibitions. They are exhibition goers,
exhibition makers and agents in the contemporary art fields.
So today I have a curating duo and they are going to answer the
(03:28):
question, will AI kill the exhibition star?
I know, I know, this is a bit ofa sensationalist question, but I
do have to drive people to the podcast.
Fair enough. Listen, we do what we can, but
it is a fair question. It is a fair question.
So I'm going to introduce my twoguests.
(03:52):
Aranda Scalera is curator of artand hypermedia.
She is lecturer at ESA in Paris.She's the curator of Lumen Prize
and Art Dubai Digital. She was named as one of the top
20 inspiring Women to look out for in 2023 by the New York City
(04:16):
Journal, for attending the WorldEconomic Forum in 2023 and 2024
as part of 100 Women for Davos, speaking about Web 3 and
Metaverse and as a speaker for the AI House.
So really I'm I'm a bit impressed, I'm a bit intimidated
here, but very honoured that youto be here.
(04:39):
Alfredo Gramerotti, I met you when you were director of Mostin
in Llandudno in Wales. You have gone from the green,
very humid sea facing landscape of Wales to the heat of the
desert. Still sea facing though, so the
(05:02):
sea is a constant. True, still different sea, but
still with the seascape, which is wonderful.
So you are now the director of MMM Museum of Art, Media and
Technology, Media Mileage Museum, which I'm probably
mispronouncing, at Northwestern Qatar.
(05:23):
You were also involved in Arts Dubai Digital and Co, curator of
Nori Art Festival, also curator for the Maxi Bulgari Prize for
Digital Arts. All of this in 2024.
There would have been much more to say about your creating
activities, obviously, but let'slet's stick to that one.
So Alfredo is also chair of the Digital strategies Committee for
(05:47):
the International Association ofArt Critics, advisor to the KSA
Visual Arts Commission, UK Government Art Collection,
British Council, Visual Arts Acquisition Committee and the
Italian Ministry of Culture. So welcome.
Thank you so much for being partof this conversation, for
(06:07):
agreeing to be here. Welcome to exhibitionists.
Thank you very much, exhibitionists.
I'm very, very honored and glad to be here.
All right, so I want to ease into the topic.
I want to know a bit more about you as young people, as
children, teenagers, young adults.
(06:30):
Can you remember when in an exhibition or in a gallery or, I
don't know, in the sculpture part, the first time you had a
really strong encounter with an exhibition, with an artwork like
a really aesthetic experience and tell us about it.
Oh, gorgeous. I'll probably a fun story about
(06:51):
because my parents, they used tobring me every two years.
They are biennial in Venice and I remember that I was really
young and Atoma, I still have this photo of my parents where I
was under this big horse made bywood, probably by Cherily.
(07:15):
I don't know who was the the theartist was at the Giardini or
Biennial or the OR the banal andI was under because I was really
short at the time I was under. So this was very, very young.
I was really under this horse because I wanted to be on but
(07:37):
was impossible, was not allowed to do that.
And I started to cry. But I really loved this, this,
this horse. I wanted to hug this, this
horse. Talking about audience
engagement here, right? I was already working in the
arts. OK, So I was, it was, I was 30
(07:59):
something. I had already a gallery in
Italy. I moved to London.
I had a residency as an artist. I was about to kind of a move
to, to Berlin to study curatorial studies.
So I was already immersed. There was one piece, that one
experience that it really, really stuck with me and it was
(08:20):
funnily enough in London and Archangel Commission and it was
the Steve McQueen descent stagedunderneath the San Martes Hotel
in that kind of a concrete sloping auditorium.
I didn't know really much about his work.
I didn't really know about how Archangel was working either.
(08:44):
I was a bit outside those kind of a London centric type of sort
of arts sort of award and and itreally kind of, it blew my mind
absolutely. So describe.
Describe the experience and the and the.
Work people were actually going into the which is next to
(09:06):
Trafalgar Square is not far fromme, the Saint Martin's Hotel.
Apparently Saint Martin's Hotel was built upon a former cinema
auditorium or something like that.
It was just reopened at the time.
It was early 2000 I think, and or 2000 even.
(09:26):
Take modern opening that you know that kind of big push.
It was a big moment. Yeah, yeah, it was a big moment.
And then you enter the hotel andthen you have to go down.
I can't remember if it was a lift or some stairs, and you
enter this super dark basement and the basement is not just a
simple basement. It was a sloping basement
(09:47):
because it was the former site of an auditorium.
Obviously the seats were taken off and people were just sitting
on the concrete waiting for something to happen.
And you waited for a bit of a long time and then suddenly
there was this kind of a screen pop up and and there was this
kind of a rumor clanging metal cage descending something.
(10:13):
And then at some point there wasanother screen on your back.
So you have to turn around. There was something else.
So it was Steve McQueen. This the journey of miners going
underground to work. And so it was completely related
to the content of the film that the place where you were,
obviously you were in central London.
(10:34):
You were not in a mine, but still the the fact it was it was
super powerful. And I still remember nowadays
and and and probably you know that that that's is a moment.
Actually, that's it kind of a soOK, this is not just about
looking at things. It it's about how you perceive
(10:55):
things, how you make things, howyou create things, actually
involving more than a dimension.An experience.
An immersive experience, Yeah. What was the exhibition
experience that while you were were already on this path,
confirmed this idea of yours? That it's really important to
(11:17):
focus on these new technologies.For sure many, I mean many
experience and many exhibition. For example, for me was the
involvement of poetry and technologies.
That was the first time ever that poetry now is part of the
contemporary art with Anna MariaCaballero or Sasha Style, and
(11:44):
they match performance poetry with new technologies.
And because I'm a big fan about poetry, I thought, OK, this is
like my dream. And I thought, yes, I'm in the
right track now. Interesting.
So how does it, how does poetry like specifically for our
(12:05):
listeners visually or in terms of experience, How does that
work, this collaboration betweenadvanced technologies, poetry
and visual arts? In general, they use voice for
interact with people or they usewords to interact with people
(12:28):
and even technologies because they collect for example gesture
and they collect their voice, they collect sound and they
translate all these experience in an artwork.
They generate text itself, Yeah,that is presented as a poetry
(12:49):
through, well, you mentioned AI at the beginning.
That's also one of the way for me the, the, the catalyst to
work on art and technology. Funnily enough, actually it was
also the conversation we had when we met years ago and we
started to work together as a curatorial duo.
(13:11):
That, that was that conversationactually that that was the
starting point because I mean, Ihave a background in, in design
and medium. So I did, you know, kind of
design, retail design in kind ofa commercial design and then I
went into how many? Lives have you lived, Alfredo?
From your biography I would think you'd be like 95 years
(13:32):
old. Yeah, well, I'm almost there.
You know, you are an art, you are not.
And, you know, and then media, you know, the websites in the
90s, it was a fun, a fun thing to do.
Yeah. And, and, and radio and TV,
experimental TV, actually, you study digital arts in times
(13:53):
where there was no such a thing to work on.
And, and so this conversation isOK that that's interesting
because for both of us, I think it represents a bit of an
expansion of the concept of artsand the practice of arts as
well. And also the, the, both the
(14:13):
conceptualization and the, and the realization of arts.
So it wasn't really an exhibition or an event.
You might argue that actually that sort of a descent from from
Steve Mccleaney was a bit of like that We had our career in
contemporary art. That's a pure contemporary art
(14:36):
if you want to use this word or this term.
But then realizing that, you know that there is a way also to
actually go expand it a bit and enlarge it.
And both in terms of the artiststhat you meet and you have
conversation with, but also the audiences that you might
(14:58):
encounter and you interact with having this expansion because
it's at the moment that's kind of a different audiences still
on two sides of the roads and we're bridging them.
We'll talk about. That we'll talk about that one.
But actually, when I kind of started in in a, in a more
(15:21):
conscious way, thinking about these technologies was also a
meeting with an artist. It's in it's interesting art on
the that you said, you mentionedpoetry because, well, you have,
I mean, poetry's been in the visual arts world with a semic
writing and also with graphic poetry.
But it is true that there's a real movement of writing into
(15:44):
the computer. And I was visiting an incredible
artist called John Hopkins. She lives in Sheffield and I
went to her studio and she does something absolutely incredible,
which is to use Chap GPT as a collaborator.
And so she used to draw. So she put in the drawing
(16:05):
machine, the pencil she preferred to use when she drew.
And so the machine makes the drawing with a really typical,
you know, kind of tool like thissort of in temporal tool for us
in the 20th and 21st centuries. And she writes with Chachi PT
this incredible poetry. And I just remember reading the
(16:30):
poems and how they interact withthe work and the drawings.
And she had this concept. Well, they had together.
It was Chachi PT 3, I remember at the time.
And so Chachi PT wrote about Bitmap Bees, which I it just, I
just had this aesthetic moment because Bitmap is this very old
(16:54):
software for graphic design thatno one uses anymore.
So that's this idea of like, as if, as if you'd said the the
Egyptian pyramids, like there's this kind of idea of old tiny
stuff and the bees who are disappearing and the
alliteration. Beautiful bitmap.
I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and I I love
(17:14):
poetry. I'm like you out on that.
I'm really into the written wordand language and sound.
She taught me about ChatGPT. It was the first person and it
was an artist who taught me about this technology, which I
had a really hard time understanding, I have to say at
the time. And then a few months later, it
(17:35):
was all over. The place she's been.
Using this for a long time, you know, so that's, that's really,
that's really interesting. I also wanted to ask you out on
the about your project that I didn't mention in the
introduction you work with. Is it called multiplicity?
Yes. Right.
(17:55):
So it's the correlation between women and advanced technologies.
And I have a question out on thevery specific which is are these
new technologies finally solve the problem of the invisibility
of women in art? And please say yes.
Well, Multi think it is a project that we founded together
(18:19):
with Alfredo because we saw thatin new technologies there were a
lot of female artists, really a lot of them.
But at the time, I mean five year ago they were not so much
visibility. Then we thought, OK, we have to
(18:39):
work with them to support them. So we during all this process,
we discovered a lot of them even, I don't know, like, oh
gosh, Alfredo. Genesis Guy or?
Genesis guy? No.
Florence, Yeah. Florence Brooke.
(19:00):
Yeah. She was one of the first coder.
Yeah. Yes, I mean and no one know
about her and she's an amazing artist.
We work with her for our Dubai Some festival and we try not to
support her in her practice and Genesis Skies for instance, she
(19:23):
worked with an avatar that represents herself, is a grow
avatar than the avatar grow withher and many many other.
I mean, there are some gem therethat need to be discovered, need
to be promoted and what? This is the purpose of
multiplicity? OK, well.
(19:45):
But you haven't. You haven't answered the
question. New technologies, are they
finally, I mean, I'm not saying like putting women at the top,
but just kind of creating. An equality.
Equality that. Would be great.
Yes, yes, yes. Because for example, if we think
(20:05):
about Krista Kim, for example, is one of the top artists on
party new technologies and many others are there and yeah.
There is a trajectory in that sense, yeah.
I mean, we started Multiplicity as a, as a publishing platform
to, we made a lot of interviews with women artists working with
(20:27):
technology and we, and the idea that we published everyone and
then we published the 1st 15 andwe ran out of time, obviously,
because it was, they started to invite us to curate exhibition
about this, this artist. And, but we started because I
mean, the especially at the boomof the digital art market, 95%
(20:51):
of the artists in the market were male.
And, and you know, 9 out of 10, the top digital art, the top 7
digit art, they were male. The only one was the singer.
Grimes. Grimes is not even a visual
(21:12):
artist, but you know, that's really frustrating.
You have the historical patternsof women artists.
In the 70s in New York with the big American obstruction,
American expressionist movement,there was an incredible amount
of female artists working incredibly hard, completely
(21:32):
invisible. And they got the solar show and
the retrospective 60 years laterwhen almost them the kind of the
dead. There was a bit of a pattern
repeating really. And so that's why we started.
And I think, you know, I don't know personally, I wouldn't say
that is equal, Still no. It's more.
(21:55):
Equal I mean, but for sure it's more equal I.
Found the video on YouTube. There was quite recent talk that
you did that you participated inat Spark Vienna, the art fair
with Thomas Hoosher, who is an ethics AI specialist.
And his interventions were really interesting to me because
(22:16):
he kept talking about the menaceon the notion of authorship,
which for me, you know, in our generation, we grew up with the
conceptualists, with Holland Bachht, and, you know, all of
these authors who were kind of trying to negotiate or replace
(22:38):
or shift perspectives on the idea of authorship.
And now we're in a market that'sthat became really conservative
in that sense. Again, we're looking at a lot of
painting, we're looking at a lotof stuff on the wall that say to
simplify things, which is obviously tied into authorship,
which is obviously not anathema in the in, in, in, let's say,
(23:02):
avant-garde art. But it is discussed in some
ways. And I was surprised to see that
that was kind of the point that was picked up by the ethical
aspects of AII. Would be interested in knowing
what your position on that and also your experience because you
actually have the experience of working with artists who are
(23:24):
developing aesthetic projects inwith those advanced
technologies. Yes.
I mean for the artists, for example, they use all these
advanced technologies and AI or all the other new technologies
(23:45):
are tools. They use these advanced
technologies as tools. Then the question about the
authorship is more by outside asphilosopher, as curator, as
museum director, as general audience that ask to themselves,
(24:06):
because you see like the eye, like devil and something that is
an alien things that can steal your creativity.
But in general, the artist, theyintegrate all these new
technologies with their practice, with their artwork.
(24:27):
It's more about us that we ask to ourself about something that
we cannot handle because we don't know how to build an AI.
But there is inside an AI, thereare some data that is kind of
big black hole of unknown things.
(24:48):
It's true. Yeah, this is very true,
actually. I, I, I agree.
The, the there are two aspects, the ethical and the authorship.
I think they're a bit also different.
I mean, the Thomas in his talk was pointing to the authorship
part because he was very keen tosay, you know, without human
(25:14):
there wouldn't be technology type of thing.
So let's bear it in mind that wecreated them, so somehow we need
to control them or we will have the possibility to control them.
So it was very time in the conversation back to the human.
(25:35):
I'm not super sure about that. I have to say personally, and
but it's true that, you know, the, the authorship is, is for
sure is, is fluctuating to say the least, because our artists
recognize also that there is a form of authorship in machine
(25:56):
learning. They do recognize, I mean, they,
I mean to to and we were discussing yesterday with our
own on the phone. It was a less, you know what,
it's the AI. What is it?
It's like a combination between,I don't know, the, the Yellow
Pages photography and the steam engine, you know, something that
(26:16):
really changed the way we live and the way we, we, we, we
create things we for work or forpersonal life.
So you cannot really deny there are some sort of authorship
aspect on it because that's, it's ingrain in the mechanism.
And I think good artists are good artists, artists who really
study the matter and they know the technology.
(26:37):
They kind of recognize that and they're fine.
You know, they, they can, they can, they can write, they can
code and they can somehow measure the way they want.
And some of them they don't wantto measure because they're kind
of enjoying the, the, the ride, so to speak, and be surprised at
what comes back and integrated that kind of in their own
(26:58):
creative process, which is not only their process.
It is, but it is not so that the, the ownership is
fluctuating. It's to me it's quite clear and
I don't think we need to be scared about that, no.
And it's probably happened the same at the same time when
(27:19):
photography was introduced underthan 50 years ago.
What's happened? The book.
The book. Or the book The Gutenberg.
Yes, the Gutenberg, Yeah. If you go back to that history,
it's beautiful to read the text as humans would no longer be
able to focus on anything outside of the written word.
They would lose memory, They would lose their relationship to
(27:42):
experience. So we've always been afraid of
technologies. And there's even a really
interesting theorist, Vilan Flusa, who connected the book
with the idea of technology. And it is the first phone, if
you think about it. I mean, it's a very small device
that you open and suddenly opens.
I would, I would push it even further.
(28:04):
Joanna, the book is the first version of the Metalers.
Yeah, there we go. OK.
OK. I have.
So many questions. Now I have, OK, let's do this,
let's do this, let's play the game.
We have to now help our listeners because we need to
(28:26):
help ourselves or help me, whichis tell me what the metaverse
is. You've already explained what AI
is in a very surrealist Dolly like painting.
How would you explain the metaverse?
And then I have an example of anAI powered artwork that I
(28:47):
experienced recently and that I would love to discuss with you.
So Metaverse, the platform is yours.
You want to go first. I can't explain something maybe
about maybe a bit provocative, but I would say that AI and the
(29:07):
metaverse are both worth building technologies just like
Dante built his Divine Comedy. And AI allows how to create the
new realities by simulating intelligence and can generate
art, new process, interact with us and with feeling human.
(29:32):
That's it. I mean, maybe.
I love that idea because we all know that a book is not a
computer, but I think it talks alot about the desire of
worlding, of creating worlds that we have as humans, and how
scary the idea of literature andstorytelling in images has
(29:56):
always been to theorists. I mean, since Plato, since this
idea that you can suddenly double and multiply what we know
reality to be for philosophers is really scary.
But for us spectators or readersor whatever you want to call it,
it is incredibly exciting. And so I love that relationship
(30:17):
with Dante's Inferno or Heaven. I don't know it can be it.
Can be, it's very true. I mean, the thing you said about
doubling and multiplying, that'sthat's a good definition of the
metaverse, and the book is precisely that.
You're going to have to. Do OK, maybe the metaverse as a
comps that always stayed with us.
(30:39):
It's just it's the format of themetaverse that's changing.
You know, you have The Cave and then you have the book, the
printing press, you have the video film, you know, film.
It's kind of a bring you somewhere.
If it is a good film. The metaverse is not really much
(31:01):
different from that is a, is a form of other reality that you
can, you can be, you can do things that you cannot really do
practically speaking in this room.
Arunda is always a very good advocate about the fact that our
experiences, it will be through technology will be very, very
individualized. There will be almost internal
(31:23):
experiences as we progress and the metabase will well there is
a lot of wearable devices that are coming up.
Now there are this new trend about wearable device, wearable
computer, wearable phone. Glasses, chips, whatever tactile
(31:47):
that expand your perceptions basically there.
Is this new trend and all the experience with this wearable
computer phone lens wherever everyone is going to have their
own experience, they own artworkinside this kind of metal verse
(32:09):
and with this new wearable computer, even with microchip
that is they are going to inceptin your in your skin.
We had some friends that they they, they have this.
Use it. That is is going.
I mean, it's happening now. They pay for the metro.
They pay for the metro, yeah. Yeah, no, when you go on to the
(32:31):
subway or the Tube or the Metro,you just put your hand.
Or your watch. Beep and and.
Now the watch. Is fine, I can live with that.
But the hands like a microchip under your skin.
They wow. Anyway, yeah.
That's incredible. Yeah, Yeah.
We have this notion of the metaverse that is a bit of a
(32:52):
like Second Life in this kind ofa virtual platform.
I mean, Second Life is tiny version of a potential
metaphors, but a book, a book isa book is another one.
Second Life, it was, I think it was from the 90s.
It was a website basically whereyou could, you could log in, you
(33:13):
could have an avatar, you could buy land and then you you could
buy properties. I remember actually the an
article from a newspaper. There was a Chinese lady who
spent $1,000,000 to buy a plot of land on the metal.
On. The on on Second Life, I think.
I did my first virtual exhibition there.
(33:35):
You're joking. No.
I'll raise you in regards to thequestion of authorship at the
Serpentine N Gallery show calledThe Call by Holly, Holly Herndon
and Matt Dryhurst. And it is a really interesting
exhibition because you go into the space and you have these
(33:59):
sculptures that are white and gold like Christian Church
sculptures that don't look exactly like the ones you would
find in in churches. And the project is that they
worked along with the digital specialized team at the
Serpentine Gallery with different choirs across the UK
(34:22):
to train the AI to sing in the same style as the choirs.
And so the experiences you have is that you have two rooms that
you go into, there's a microphone.
Suddenly you're in either a funereal home or in the really
unknown episode of Twin Peaks. So there's that microphone like
(34:45):
solipsistically standing there. And so you walk towards it and
you sing and the AI sings back to you through the learnt
experience of having the data ofthe choirs put into it.
I guess I don't know what the term would be.
(35:06):
So the notion of skill of the artist and authorship has moved
from creating the framework and no longer being the makers in
terms of a source of a craft. The craft is someone else's and
they create the framework and bring the the device, let's say,
(35:28):
or the software or the advanced technology that will allow them
to create that situation. Did you experience that show?
Did you see it? What did you think of it?
18 choirs all across the UK fromthe South to something like that
yeah and they train they basically ask them to to sing
(35:49):
one piece, the same piece for all the choirs.
And basically they train machinelearning to learn the style of
the different choirs on that piece of music basically.
And I found it fascinating because it's it's a good example
(36:12):
how you can expand your work as a contemporary artist and
creating also some, weirdly enough, creating some form of a
community through this technological experiments if you
want. And also not only through the
participant, but the audiences as well, because it's a very
(36:33):
traditional is almost the staticcannons for that show.
They're very traditional. You have the choir song that
everyone recognized. The codes are very known to the
general audiences, at least in Europe, and you have the
ornaments. They designed the ornaments and
(36:53):
in 3D. They printed everything in 3D.
Oh, so the first sort of furniture's.
Correct. Yes, they use, there is also
beautiful etching the child's that you end when you when you
enter, you see that one, if I'm not mistaken, it's they use
their son to do that. So it's also it's a very kind of
(37:14):
almost romantic type of approachwhere you, you create a piece of
contemporary yard very, very rooted in what is a classical
tradition. And but you really went beyond
the traditional use super advanced technology and machine
learning to re experience that Why in a in a different way.
(37:34):
And it's true. When you enter, you have the two
rooms and the microphone and yousing or you say, or you whistle
and you produce any kind of sound, you produce any kind of
sound and, and that respond back.
And that also goes back into thedatabase by the way.
Oh, does it? Oh, I didn't realize that I I
(37:56):
sang the Beastie Boys. One of the best, my Beastie
Boys. Fantastic.
That's that's it's in there now.It's in there now.
So I'm interested in that project because there's this
mixture of religious iconographyand particularly the child.
You're very right in pointing that out because there is this
(38:20):
philosopher in Portugal called extinct de Silva.
I mean, he passed away a long time ago.
And he had this idea that machines would liberate humans
and that they would end our the,the, this this condition of
being slaves to the grind, if you will.
And he also compared the, let's say, Christian narrative, let's
(38:48):
put it that way. And he interpreted it in the way
that now we, we are in the era of the child we finally
achieved. So it's a teleological obviously
relationship, the time and history.
When you mentioned the child, I thought of him because I did, I
didn't notice there was the, this kind of the, the figure of
the angels, let's say, was kind of taken in that exhibition.
(39:10):
And I, and now that you mention it, I, I thought of that
philosopher. And the idea is that the child
is the openness is the absence of demagogic ideologies, of
frontiers of cruelty. So yeah, I, I found that
(39:30):
interesting that the iconographywas, was present there.
And I thought it might be a bit shocking for some people to take
something so traditional and associated with AI.
But it can also be convincing inthe sense that it can tell you
listen. This can expand and can continue
to exist in some other form. What I what I like about the
(39:52):
project is also that they make the whole experience very, very
accessible to anybody who steps into the gathering.
Yes, because you can even. Not read the thing, cannot
really, you know, just experience the sound and the and
the iconography, the ornament ifyou want and still get a good
(40:14):
experience even without knowing the background and the and the
process of it. Yes, and that's something else I
wanted to discuss with you because I so I went with a
friend and we, she reads the texts at the entrance of
exhibitions. I don't always do that.
I tend not to do it. And so I read the text with her
(40:35):
and I just felt her cringe like she was, and she used that word.
It's explained in the way that it puts AI at the front of the
experience. And I would love you to tell me
about that, about how to manage people's expectations,
anxieties, excitement as well inregards to these new
technologies and exhibition spaces.
(40:55):
And my friend was saying AI is not that complicated.
It's easy to understand. I was like, OK, well, you tell
me what it is then. But you know, we we all have an
idea by now. I think she's quite right.
We all kind of know what that's about.
I mean, everyone's curious aboutit.
I think that there is kind of duality in this moment because
people really feel that is something that is alien,
(41:18):
something that is not human. And in the other hand, there is
a big curiosity about. And the key to understand the AI
isn't about replacing artists, but it's about more creating new
possibility, collaborating together, cooperation, this kind
(41:40):
of stuff. I.
Mean AI, it's we don't think about what you're right, John.
I mean, you take an Uber is machine learning that that that
is so ingrained in our daily life that we don't just notice
it And and also the scary bits, you know, facial recognitions,
(42:02):
cloud control, security system, airport check in.
I mean, you do have a lot of things where AI is very, very
present and you don't you're notin control of your data for
sure, but how to mediate to an audience in art and cultural
context. Sorry, it's a bit kind of a auto
(42:27):
celebration maybe, but I think it downs to the curator.
I think there is a big curatorial gap still in the
curator who works in staging exhibition or contemporary art
or modern art or classic art andcurator actually work with a
(42:48):
digital and advanced technology because the two set of skills
are not really bridged. So you have digital art curator
and had no clue how to create aninterpretation plan for an
exhibition or an audience engagement plan or whatever.
(43:10):
And conversely, museum curators that they don't even touch
someone, you know, working with blockchain because that's a
scam. So that you have this kind of
very 2 sort of side, let's say, of the curatorial practice and
the scholarship so far, At leastthere are some people who can
(43:35):
bridge. We try to bridge very much as a
curatorial duo. Like you say you were saying, I
mean now you have to mediate with a lot of different things
like AI artist, curator. And our philosophy now is like
(43:58):
about Co curating things, Co creating things, Co designing Co
experience. As curator, we try to to bridge
all these different aspects, mediating with different.
Players. Yeah.
Actors. And that's because even because
(44:21):
we decide to be a duo not to to make less of our ego and to
share more with the world. When you are in front of a
laptop or you are in front of the entrance of a gallery,
what's the journey? What do you get away from the at
(44:42):
the end of it? What did you take away?
And, and sometimes, but sometimes often is the very job
of the curator. Imagine yourself in the very
first viewer who comes in and you don't know who's this person
is. It could be a child.
(45:02):
What do? Where do you bring them?
What do they do? What do they see?
What do they perceive? What do they take away at the
end? Because we new technologies is
more fluid than you can choose, you can create your own part in
general. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's also this idea, the
(45:23):
aesthetic impact of of these devices.
I remember when I was curating the show of of Irma Blanc, who's
this, who you showed, by the way, in Mostin.
She was this very minimalist artist, German artist based in
Italy, who worked with sound. So she recorded the sound of the
(45:46):
making of her drawings and we included that in the exhibition
and I suggested the sound showers.
Everyone was appalled, includingIrma herself.
She was shocked. And I just said, but headsets
are much worse. And that because we wanted the
(46:10):
sound to be in the environment, but then we didn't want it to,
you know, we were kind of talking about how to place the
sound and how for it not to be cumbersome in the experience of
other areas of the exhibition. And yeah, it was received with
the utmost disgusts. And now you.
See them everywhere. There are some directional,
(46:32):
directional speakers now. They're quite amazing.
They're super almost invisible and you have this kind of a cut
through space where you hear thesound and then you step out and
you don't hear it anymore. It's.
Incredible. But I do love the showers.
I love the idea of the sound shower, first of all, and I like
them and I think they're interesting because The thing is
(46:53):
that it takes us so much time toaccept technologies.
When I curate shows, you know, Idon't hide the the cables.
If there's video, if there's any, it's part of the device.
What would be your dream exhibition?
An exhibition you haven't experienced that that you would
love to experience in the future?
As a duo or individually? If you can answer as you, I'm
(47:19):
going to be really impressed. I can reply for sure Alfredo if
I'm wrong it could be a mix between plants, mutual plants
or. Real plants.
And music for sure, because thisis our passion, that maybe
(47:40):
mixing all these things together, interesting for sure.
Plant poetry and music. That's a perfect triad.
Fantastic. Love it.
Beautiful. I, I love that.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming to the
podcast. Do you have anything that you
want to mention that you are involved in?
(48:03):
Any projects? Any things that we should be on
the lookout for? Maybe two things at the Media
Margins Museum talking about AI.You have to stop banging your
table. Come on.
Sorry. Sorry.
Me too. Sorry.
Yeah. Especially when you're
advertising your projects doing.Me, I look at me.
Look at me. Like this, holding my hand.
(48:28):
Dear listeners, we're all holding our hands.
Sorry, sorry. Alfredo, who keeps
gesticulating. I'm Italian.
I can't help. I was saying that at the Media
Matches Museum, we had an exhibition on the relationship
between AI and the investigativejournalism, which is because
it's called AR Nae and it's veryinterdisciplinary.
(48:51):
There are 20 artists, communication specialists,
journalists, obviously technologists.
Is is kind of an interesting take on what we knew, what we
currently know and what we mightnot know about the future.
So it's like a speculative part of it.
(49:12):
That's why I mean, it's really, really interesting with a lot of
digital flows, but also a lot ofobjects loans actually from from
museums. We are organized this massive
Congress in in the Arab world and between Doha, Dubai, Shah
Abu Dhabi. And the topic will be gender
(49:34):
empowerment. That is one of the topics here
in this country that, yeah. And it will be the second week
of April for like 100 curators. 7 days, four cities.
Pretty intense, but really good.Yeah, you are globetrotters for
sure. Yeah, well, thank you so much.
(49:56):
Thank. You.
Thank you. Thanks a lot, John.
It was a pleasure. Likewise, and let's do this
again somewhere in the midst of us.
Yes, I like it. Or in the past.
Let's do this. Or in the past at some point.
Well, take care and. Thank you.
Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello. Hi.
Thank you so much for tuning in.Welcome to this episode, which
is a guest episode where I talked to a curating duo who
specializes in new technologies.And I have to say this
conversation was really impactful.
My perspective was shifted and that was because we didn't come
(00:29):
from a place of dread or from a place of fear and prejudice.
We didn't talk about robot ladies with bad wigs that can
paint. We talked about the reality that
is here. So while I'm recording this, an
AI is cleaning my sound, it is producing snapshots, and it is
transcribing what I'm saying. So we talked about that.
(00:53):
We talked about those tools, about the metaverse, about so
many things that surround us or that potentially will very soon
and that artists are already using.
The exciting part about this episode is that Alfredo and
Aranda, so my two guests, know about concrete examples of
(01:16):
artists using these technologiesin ways that are really
compelling and really exciting, and there are real artistic
experiences and it really will change your mind.
Leave me a comment if it didn't.This is kind of a dare almost.
I'm really, really happy to haveexpanded into video, into new
(01:38):
guests, although Emily's coming back in March and I'm very, very
happy about the exhibition that we're going to talk about.
I'm also on Sub Stack, by the way, started writing shorter
texts again, and it's really exciting.
So there's lots of ways for you to financially help.
You can use the Blink that I have in the show's notes or in
(02:01):
my website, exhibitionistpodcast.com,
whatever suits you. There is so many ways for you to
help and a small donation. I don't ask for big donations,
although of course I'm not allergic to them.
And to those who can't, they will be supported by you because
I want to create accessible content.
(02:21):
That is my ethos and that's whatI believe in.
So episodes will always be therefor everyone.
So those who can contribute, well, you will be helping those
who cannot, you will make them feel better in knowing that I am
getting paid for my work. That's it.
That is my duty done. So go ahead and listen to this
(02:45):
wonderful and intriguing, compelling and exciting and
impactful conversation with Alfredo Gramerotti and out on
that camera. Hello and welcome to
(03:06):
Exhibitionists, the podcast where we visit exhibitions so
that you have to or where we invite guests that expand the
notion of exhibitions. They are exhibition goers,
exhibition makers and agents in the contemporary art fields.
So today I have a curating duo and they are going to answer the
(03:28):
question, will AI kill the exhibition star?
I know, I know, this is a bit ofa sensationalist question, but I
do have to drive people to the podcast.
Fair enough. Listen, we do what we can, but
it is a fair question. It is a fair question.
So I'm going to introduce my twoguests.
(03:52):
Aranda Scalera is curator of artand hypermedia.
She is lecturer at ESA in Paris.She's the curator of Lumen Prize
and Art Dubai Digital. She was named as one of the top
20 inspiring Women to look out for in 2023 by the New York City
(04:16):
Journal, for attending the WorldEconomic Forum in 2023 and 2024
as part of 100 Women for Davos, speaking about Web 3 and
Metaverse and as a speaker for the AI House.
So really I'm I'm a bit impressed, I'm a bit intimidated
here, but very honoured that youto be here.
(04:39):
Alfredo Gramerotti, I met you when you were director of Mostin
in Llandudno in Wales. You have gone from the green,
very humid sea facing landscape of Wales to the heat of the
desert. Still sea facing though, so the
(05:02):
sea is a constant. True, still different sea, but
still with the seascape, which is wonderful.
So you are now the director of MMM Museum of Art, Media and
Technology, Media Mileage Museum, which I'm probably
mispronouncing, at Northwestern Qatar.
(05:23):
You were also involved in Arts Dubai Digital and Co, curator of
Nori Art Festival, also curator for the Maxi Bulgari Prize for
Digital Arts. All of this in 2024.
There would have been much more to say about your creating
activities, obviously, but let'slet's stick to that one.
So Alfredo is also chair of the Digital strategies Committee for
(05:47):
the International Association ofArt Critics, advisor to the KSA
Visual Arts Commission, UK Government Art Collection,
British Council, Visual Arts Acquisition Committee and the
Italian Ministry of Culture. So welcome.
Thank you so much for being partof this conversation, for
(06:07):
agreeing to be here. Welcome to exhibitionists.
Thank you very much, exhibitionists.
I'm very, very honored and glad to be here.
All right, so I want to ease into the topic.
I want to know a bit more about you as young people, as
children, teenagers, young adults.
(06:30):
Can you remember when in an exhibition or in a gallery or, I
don't know, in the sculpture part, the first time you had a
really strong encounter with an exhibition, with an artwork like
a really aesthetic experience and tell us about it.
Oh, gorgeous. I'll probably a fun story about
(06:51):
because my parents, they used tobring me every two years.
They are biennial in Venice and I remember that I was really
young and Atoma, I still have this photo of my parents where I
was under this big horse made bywood, probably by Cherily.
(07:15):
I don't know who was the the theartist was at the Giardini or
Biennial or the OR the banal andI was under because I was really
short at the time I was under. So this was very, very young.
I was really under this horse because I wanted to be on but
(07:37):
was impossible, was not allowed to do that.
And I started to cry. But I really loved this, this,
this horse. I wanted to hug this, this
horse. Talking about audience
engagement here, right? I was already working in the
arts. OK, So I was, it was, I was 30
(07:59):
something. I had already a gallery in
Italy. I moved to London.
I had a residency as an artist. I was about to kind of a move
to, to Berlin to study curatorial studies.
So I was already immersed. There was one piece, that one
experience that it really, really stuck with me and it was
(08:20):
funnily enough in London and Archangel Commission and it was
the Steve McQueen descent stagedunderneath the San Martes Hotel
in that kind of a concrete sloping auditorium.
I didn't know really much about his work.
I didn't really know about how Archangel was working either.
(08:44):
I was a bit outside those kind of a London centric type of sort
of arts sort of award and and itreally kind of, it blew my mind
absolutely. So describe.
Describe the experience and the and the.
Work people were actually going into the which is next to
(09:06):
Trafalgar Square is not far fromme, the Saint Martin's Hotel.
Apparently Saint Martin's Hotel was built upon a former cinema
auditorium or something like that.
It was just reopened at the time.
It was early 2000 I think, and or 2000 even.
(09:26):
Take modern opening that you know that kind of big push.
It was a big moment. Yeah, yeah, it was a big moment.
And then you enter the hotel andthen you have to go down.
I can't remember if it was a lift or some stairs, and you
enter this super dark basement and the basement is not just a
simple basement. It was a sloping basement
(09:47):
because it was the former site of an auditorium.
Obviously the seats were taken off and people were just sitting
on the concrete waiting for something to happen.
And you waited for a bit of a long time and then suddenly
there was this kind of a screen pop up and and there was this
kind of a rumor clanging metal cage descending something.
(10:13):
And then at some point there wasanother screen on your back.
So you have to turn around. There was something else.
So it was Steve McQueen. This the journey of miners going
underground to work. And so it was completely related
to the content of the film that the place where you were,
obviously you were in central London.
(10:34):
You were not in a mine, but still the the fact it was it was
super powerful. And I still remember nowadays
and and and probably you know that that that's is a moment.
Actually, that's it kind of a soOK, this is not just about
looking at things. It it's about how you perceive
(10:55):
things, how you make things, howyou create things, actually
involving more than a dimension.An experience.
An immersive experience, Yeah. What was the exhibition
experience that while you were were already on this path,
confirmed this idea of yours? That it's really important to
(11:17):
focus on these new technologies.For sure many, I mean many
experience and many exhibition. For example, for me was the
involvement of poetry and technologies.
That was the first time ever that poetry now is part of the
contemporary art with Anna MariaCaballero or Sasha Style, and
(11:44):
they match performance poetry with new technologies.
And because I'm a big fan about poetry, I thought, OK, this is
like my dream. And I thought, yes, I'm in the
right track now. Interesting.
So how does it, how does poetry like specifically for our
(12:05):
listeners visually or in terms of experience, How does that
work, this collaboration betweenadvanced technologies, poetry
and visual arts? In general, they use voice for
interact with people or they usewords to interact with people
(12:28):
and even technologies because they collect for example gesture
and they collect their voice, they collect sound and they
translate all these experience in an artwork.
They generate text itself, Yeah,that is presented as a poetry
(12:49):
through, well, you mentioned AI at the beginning.
That's also one of the way for me the, the, the catalyst to
work on art and technology. Funnily enough, actually it was
also the conversation we had when we met years ago and we
started to work together as a curatorial duo.
(13:11):
That, that was that conversationactually that that was the
starting point because I mean, Ihave a background in, in design
and medium. So I did, you know, kind of
design, retail design in kind ofa commercial design and then I
went into how many? Lives have you lived, Alfredo?
From your biography I would think you'd be like 95 years
(13:32):
old. Yeah, well, I'm almost there.
You know, you are an art, you are not.
And, you know, and then media, you know, the websites in the
90s, it was a fun, a fun thing to do.
Yeah. And, and, and radio and TV,
experimental TV, actually, you study digital arts in times
(13:53):
where there was no such a thing to work on.
And, and so this conversation isOK that that's interesting
because for both of us, I think it represents a bit of an
expansion of the concept of artsand the practice of arts as
well. And also the, the, both the
(14:13):
conceptualization and the, and the realization of arts.
So it wasn't really an exhibition or an event.
You might argue that actually that sort of a descent from from
Steve Mccleaney was a bit of like that We had our career in
contemporary art. That's a pure contemporary art
(14:36):
if you want to use this word or this term.
But then realizing that, you know that there is a way also to
actually go expand it a bit and enlarge it.
And both in terms of the artiststhat you meet and you have
conversation with, but also the audiences that you might
(14:58):
encounter and you interact with having this expansion because
it's at the moment that's kind of a different audiences still
on two sides of the roads and we're bridging them.
We'll talk about. That we'll talk about that one.
But actually, when I kind of started in in a, in a more
(15:21):
conscious way, thinking about these technologies was also a
meeting with an artist. It's in it's interesting art on
the that you said, you mentionedpoetry because, well, you have,
I mean, poetry's been in the visual arts world with a semic
writing and also with graphic poetry.
But it is true that there's a real movement of writing into
(15:44):
the computer. And I was visiting an incredible
artist called John Hopkins. She lives in Sheffield and I
went to her studio and she does something absolutely incredible,
which is to use Chap GPT as a collaborator.
And so she used to draw. So she put in the drawing
(16:05):
machine, the pencil she preferred to use when she drew.
And so the machine makes the drawing with a really typical,
you know, kind of tool like thissort of in temporal tool for us
in the 20th and 21st centuries. And she writes with Chachi PT
this incredible poetry. And I just remember reading the
(16:30):
poems and how they interact withthe work and the drawings.
And she had this concept. Well, they had together.
It was Chachi PT 3, I remember at the time.
And so Chachi PT wrote about Bitmap Bees, which I it just, I
just had this aesthetic moment because Bitmap is this very old
(16:54):
software for graphic design thatno one uses anymore.
So that's this idea of like, as if, as if you'd said the the
Egyptian pyramids, like there's this kind of idea of old tiny
stuff and the bees who are disappearing and the
alliteration. Beautiful bitmap.
I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and I I love
(17:14):
poetry. I'm like you out on that.
I'm really into the written wordand language and sound.
She taught me about ChatGPT. It was the first person and it
was an artist who taught me about this technology, which I
had a really hard time understanding, I have to say at
the time. And then a few months later, it
(17:35):
was all over. The place she's been.
Using this for a long time, you know, so that's, that's really,
that's really interesting. I also wanted to ask you out on
the about your project that I didn't mention in the
introduction you work with. Is it called multiplicity?
Yes. Right.
(17:55):
So it's the correlation between women and advanced technologies.
And I have a question out on thevery specific which is are these
new technologies finally solve the problem of the invisibility
of women in art? And please say yes.
Well, Multi think it is a project that we founded together
(18:19):
with Alfredo because we saw thatin new technologies there were a
lot of female artists, really a lot of them.
But at the time, I mean five year ago they were not so much
visibility. Then we thought, OK, we have to
(18:39):
work with them to support them. So we during all this process,
we discovered a lot of them even, I don't know, like, oh
gosh, Alfredo. Genesis Guy or?
Genesis guy? No.
Florence, Yeah. Florence Brooke.
(19:00):
Yeah. She was one of the first coder.
Yeah. Yes, I mean and no one know
about her and she's an amazing artist.
We work with her for our Dubai Some festival and we try not to
support her in her practice and Genesis Skies for instance, she
(19:23):
worked with an avatar that represents herself, is a grow
avatar than the avatar grow withher and many many other.
I mean, there are some gem therethat need to be discovered, need
to be promoted and what? This is the purpose of
multiplicity? OK, well.
(19:45):
But you haven't. You haven't answered the
question. New technologies, are they
finally, I mean, I'm not saying like putting women at the top,
but just kind of creating. An equality.
Equality that. Would be great.
Yes, yes, yes. Because for example, if we think
(20:05):
about Krista Kim, for example, is one of the top artists on
party new technologies and many others are there and yeah.
There is a trajectory in that sense, yeah.
I mean, we started Multiplicity as a, as a publishing platform
to, we made a lot of interviews with women artists working with
(20:27):
technology and we, and the idea that we published everyone and
then we published the 1st 15 andwe ran out of time, obviously,
because it was, they started to invite us to curate exhibition
about this, this artist. And, but we started because I
mean, the especially at the boomof the digital art market, 95%
(20:51):
of the artists in the market were male.
And, and you know, 9 out of 10, the top digital art, the top 7
digit art, they were male. The only one was the singer.
Grimes. Grimes is not even a visual
(21:12):
artist, but you know, that's really frustrating.
You have the historical patternsof women artists.
In the 70s in New York with the big American obstruction,
American expressionist movement,there was an incredible amount
of female artists working incredibly hard, completely
(21:32):
invisible. And they got the solar show and
the retrospective 60 years laterwhen almost them the kind of the
dead. There was a bit of a pattern
repeating really. And so that's why we started.
And I think, you know, I don't know personally, I wouldn't say
that is equal, Still no. It's more.
(21:55):
Equal I mean, but for sure it's more equal I.
Found the video on YouTube. There was quite recent talk that
you did that you participated inat Spark Vienna, the art fair
with Thomas Hoosher, who is an ethics AI specialist.
And his interventions were really interesting to me because
(22:16):
he kept talking about the menaceon the notion of authorship,
which for me, you know, in our generation, we grew up with the
conceptualists, with Holland Bachht, and, you know, all of
these authors who were kind of trying to negotiate or replace
(22:38):
or shift perspectives on the idea of authorship.
And now we're in a market that'sthat became really conservative
in that sense. Again, we're looking at a lot of
painting, we're looking at a lotof stuff on the wall that say to
simplify things, which is obviously tied into authorship,
which is obviously not anathema in the in, in, in, let's say,
(23:02):
avant-garde art. But it is discussed in some
ways. And I was surprised to see that
that was kind of the point that was picked up by the ethical
aspects of AII. Would be interested in knowing
what your position on that and also your experience because you
actually have the experience of working with artists who are
(23:24):
developing aesthetic projects inwith those advanced
technologies. Yes.
I mean for the artists, for example, they use all these
advanced technologies and AI or all the other new technologies
(23:45):
are tools. They use these advanced
technologies as tools. Then the question about the
authorship is more by outside asphilosopher, as curator, as
museum director, as general audience that ask to themselves,
(24:06):
because you see like the eye, like devil and something that is
an alien things that can steal your creativity.
But in general, the artist, theyintegrate all these new
technologies with their practice, with their artwork.
(24:27):
It's more about us that we ask to ourself about something that
we cannot handle because we don't know how to build an AI.
But there is inside an AI, thereare some data that is kind of
big black hole of unknown things.
(24:48):
It's true. Yeah, this is very true,
actually. I, I, I agree.
The, the there are two aspects, the ethical and the authorship.
I think they're a bit also different.
I mean, the Thomas in his talk was pointing to the authorship
part because he was very keen tosay, you know, without human
(25:14):
there wouldn't be technology type of thing.
So let's bear it in mind that wecreated them, so somehow we need
to control them or we will have the possibility to control them.
So it was very time in the conversation back to the human.
(25:35):
I'm not super sure about that. I have to say personally, and
but it's true that, you know, the, the authorship is, is for
sure is, is fluctuating to say the least, because our artists
recognize also that there is a form of authorship in machine
(25:56):
learning. They do recognize, I mean, they,
I mean to to and we were discussing yesterday with our
own on the phone. It was a less, you know what,
it's the AI. What is it?
It's like a combination between,I don't know, the, the Yellow
Pages photography and the steam engine, you know, something that
(26:16):
really changed the way we live and the way we, we, we, we
create things we for work or forpersonal life.
So you cannot really deny there are some sort of authorship
aspect on it because that's, it's ingrain in the mechanism.
And I think good artists are good artists, artists who really
study the matter and they know the technology.
(26:37):
They kind of recognize that and they're fine.
You know, they, they can, they can, they can write, they can
code and they can somehow measure the way they want.
And some of them they don't wantto measure because they're kind
of enjoying the, the, the ride, so to speak, and be surprised at
what comes back and integrated that kind of in their own
(26:58):
creative process, which is not only their process.
It is, but it is not so that the, the ownership is
fluctuating. It's to me it's quite clear and
I don't think we need to be scared about that, no.
And it's probably happened the same at the same time when
(27:19):
photography was introduced underthan 50 years ago.
What's happened? The book.
The book. Or the book The Gutenberg.
Yes, the Gutenberg, Yeah. If you go back to that history,
it's beautiful to read the text as humans would no longer be
able to focus on anything outside of the written word.
They would lose memory, They would lose their relationship to
(27:42):
experience. So we've always been afraid of
technologies. And there's even a really
interesting theorist, Vilan Flusa, who connected the book
with the idea of technology. And it is the first phone, if
you think about it. I mean, it's a very small device
that you open and suddenly opens.
I would, I would push it even further.
(28:04):
Joanna, the book is the first version of the Metalers.
Yeah, there we go. OK.
OK. I have.
So many questions. Now I have, OK, let's do this,
let's do this, let's play the game.
We have to now help our listeners because we need to
(28:26):
help ourselves or help me, whichis tell me what the metaverse
is. You've already explained what AI
is in a very surrealist Dolly like painting.
How would you explain the metaverse?
And then I have an example of anAI powered artwork that I
(28:47):
experienced recently and that I would love to discuss with you.
So Metaverse, the platform is yours.
You want to go first. I can't explain something maybe
about maybe a bit provocative, but I would say that AI and the
(29:07):
metaverse are both worth building technologies just like
Dante built his Divine Comedy. And AI allows how to create the
new realities by simulating intelligence and can generate
art, new process, interact with us and with feeling human.
(29:32):
That's it. I mean, maybe.
I love that idea because we all know that a book is not a
computer, but I think it talks alot about the desire of
worlding, of creating worlds that we have as humans, and how
scary the idea of literature andstorytelling in images has
(29:56):
always been to theorists. I mean, since Plato, since this
idea that you can suddenly double and multiply what we know
reality to be for philosophers is really scary.
But for us spectators or readersor whatever you want to call it,
it is incredibly exciting. And so I love that relationship
(30:17):
with Dante's Inferno or Heaven. I don't know it can be it.
Can be, it's very true. I mean, the thing you said about
doubling and multiplying, that'sthat's a good definition of the
metaverse, and the book is precisely that.
You're going to have to. Do OK, maybe the metaverse as a
comps that always stayed with us.
(30:39):
It's just it's the format of themetaverse that's changing.
You know, you have The Cave and then you have the book, the
printing press, you have the video film, you know, film.
It's kind of a bring you somewhere.
If it is a good film. The metaverse is not really much
(31:01):
different from that is a, is a form of other reality that you
can, you can be, you can do things that you cannot really do
practically speaking in this room.
Arunda is always a very good advocate about the fact that our
experiences, it will be through technology will be very, very
individualized. There will be almost internal
(31:23):
experiences as we progress and the metabase will well there is
a lot of wearable devices that are coming up.
Now there are this new trend about wearable device, wearable
computer, wearable phone. Glasses, chips, whatever tactile
(31:47):
that expand your perceptions basically there.
Is this new trend and all the experience with this wearable
computer phone lens wherever everyone is going to have their
own experience, they own artworkinside this kind of metal verse
(32:09):
and with this new wearable computer, even with microchip
that is they are going to inceptin your in your skin.
We had some friends that they they, they have this.
Use it. That is is going.
I mean, it's happening now. They pay for the metro.
They pay for the metro, yeah. Yeah, no, when you go on to the
(32:31):
subway or the Tube or the Metro,you just put your hand.
Or your watch. Beep and and.
Now the watch. Is fine, I can live with that.
But the hands like a microchip under your skin.
They wow. Anyway, yeah.
That's incredible. Yeah, Yeah.
We have this notion of the metaverse that is a bit of a
(32:52):
like Second Life in this kind ofa virtual platform.
I mean, Second Life is tiny version of a potential
metaphors, but a book, a book isa book is another one.
Second Life, it was, I think it was from the 90s.
It was a website basically whereyou could, you could log in, you
(33:13):
could have an avatar, you could buy land and then you you could
buy properties. I remember actually the an
article from a newspaper. There was a Chinese lady who
spent $1,000,000 to buy a plot of land on the metal.
On. The on on Second Life, I think.
I did my first virtual exhibition there.
(33:35):
You're joking. No.
I'll raise you in regards to thequestion of authorship at the
Serpentine N Gallery show calledThe Call by Holly, Holly Herndon
and Matt Dryhurst. And it is a really interesting
exhibition because you go into the space and you have these
(33:59):
sculptures that are white and gold like Christian Church
sculptures that don't look exactly like the ones you would
find in in churches. And the project is that they
worked along with the digital specialized team at the
Serpentine Gallery with different choirs across the UK
(34:22):
to train the AI to sing in the same style as the choirs.
And so the experiences you have is that you have two rooms that
you go into, there's a microphone.
Suddenly you're in either a funereal home or in the really
unknown episode of Twin Peaks. So there's that microphone like
(34:45):
solipsistically standing there. And so you walk towards it and
you sing and the AI sings back to you through the learnt
experience of having the data ofthe choirs put into it.
I guess I don't know what the term would be.
(35:06):
So the notion of skill of the artist and authorship has moved
from creating the framework and no longer being the makers in
terms of a source of a craft. The craft is someone else's and
they create the framework and bring the the device, let's say,
(35:28):
or the software or the advanced technology that will allow them
to create that situation. Did you experience that show?
Did you see it? What did you think of it?
18 choirs all across the UK fromthe South to something like that
yeah and they train they basically ask them to to sing
(35:49):
one piece, the same piece for all the choirs.
And basically they train machinelearning to learn the style of
the different choirs on that piece of music basically.
And I found it fascinating because it's it's a good example
(36:12):
how you can expand your work as a contemporary artist and
creating also some, weirdly enough, creating some form of a
community through this technological experiments if you
want. And also not only through the
participant, but the audiences as well, because it's a very
(36:33):
traditional is almost the staticcannons for that show.
They're very traditional. You have the choir song that
everyone recognized. The codes are very known to the
general audiences, at least in Europe, and you have the
ornaments. They designed the ornaments and
(36:53):
in 3D. They printed everything in 3D.
Oh, so the first sort of furniture's.
Correct. Yes, they use, there is also
beautiful etching the child's that you end when you when you
enter, you see that one, if I'm not mistaken, it's they use
their son to do that. So it's also it's a very kind of
(37:14):
almost romantic type of approachwhere you, you create a piece of
contemporary yard very, very rooted in what is a classical
tradition. And but you really went beyond
the traditional use super advanced technology and machine
learning to re experience that Why in a in a different way.
(37:34):
And it's true. When you enter, you have the two
rooms and the microphone and yousing or you say, or you whistle
and you produce any kind of sound, you produce any kind of
sound and, and that respond back.
And that also goes back into thedatabase by the way.
Oh, does it? Oh, I didn't realize that I I
(37:56):
sang the Beastie Boys. One of the best, my Beastie
Boys. Fantastic.
That's that's it's in there now.It's in there now.
So I'm interested in that project because there's this
mixture of religious iconographyand particularly the child.
You're very right in pointing that out because there is this
(38:20):
philosopher in Portugal called extinct de Silva.
I mean, he passed away a long time ago.
And he had this idea that machines would liberate humans
and that they would end our the,the, this this condition of
being slaves to the grind, if you will.
And he also compared the, let's say, Christian narrative, let's
(38:48):
put it that way. And he interpreted it in the way
that now we, we are in the era of the child we finally
achieved. So it's a teleological obviously
relationship, the time and history.
When you mentioned the child, I thought of him because I did, I
didn't notice there was the, this kind of the, the figure of
the angels, let's say, was kind of taken in that exhibition.
(39:10):
And I, and now that you mention it, I, I thought of that
philosopher. And the idea is that the child
is the openness is the absence of demagogic ideologies, of
frontiers of cruelty. So yeah, I, I found that
(39:30):
interesting that the iconographywas, was present there.
And I thought it might be a bit shocking for some people to take
something so traditional and associated with AI.
But it can also be convincing inthe sense that it can tell you
listen. This can expand and can continue
to exist in some other form. What I what I like about the
(39:52):
project is also that they make the whole experience very, very
accessible to anybody who steps into the gathering.
Yes, because you can even. Not read the thing, cannot
really, you know, just experience the sound and the and
the iconography, the ornament ifyou want and still get a good
(40:14):
experience even without knowing the background and the and the
process of it. Yes, and that's something else I
wanted to discuss with you because I so I went with a
friend and we, she reads the texts at the entrance of
exhibitions. I don't always do that.
I tend not to do it. And so I read the text with her
(40:35):
and I just felt her cringe like she was, and she used that word.
It's explained in the way that it puts AI at the front of the
experience. And I would love you to tell me
about that, about how to manage people's expectations,
anxieties, excitement as well inregards to these new
technologies and exhibition spaces.
(40:55):
And my friend was saying AI is not that complicated.
It's easy to understand. I was like, OK, well, you tell
me what it is then. But you know, we we all have an
idea by now. I think she's quite right.
We all kind of know what that's about.
I mean, everyone's curious aboutit.
I think that there is kind of duality in this moment because
people really feel that is something that is alien,
(41:18):
something that is not human. And in the other hand, there is
a big curiosity about. And the key to understand the AI
isn't about replacing artists, but it's about more creating new
possibility, collaborating together, cooperation, this kind
(41:40):
of stuff. I.
Mean AI, it's we don't think about what you're right, John.
I mean, you take an Uber is machine learning that that that
is so ingrained in our daily life that we don't just notice
it And and also the scary bits, you know, facial recognitions,
(42:02):
cloud control, security system, airport check in.
I mean, you do have a lot of things where AI is very, very
present and you don't you're notin control of your data for
sure, but how to mediate to an audience in art and cultural
context. Sorry, it's a bit kind of a auto
(42:27):
celebration maybe, but I think it downs to the curator.
I think there is a big curatorial gap still in the
curator who works in staging exhibition or contemporary art
or modern art or classic art andcurator actually work with a
(42:48):
digital and advanced technology because the two set of skills
are not really bridged. So you have digital art curator
and had no clue how to create aninterpretation plan for an
exhibition or an audience engagement plan or whatever.
(43:10):
And conversely, museum curators that they don't even touch
someone, you know, working with blockchain because that's a
scam. So that you have this kind of
very 2 sort of side, let's say, of the curatorial practice and
the scholarship so far, At leastthere are some people who can
(43:35):
bridge. We try to bridge very much as a
curatorial duo. Like you say you were saying, I
mean now you have to mediate with a lot of different things
like AI artist, curator. And our philosophy now is like
(43:58):
about Co curating things, Co creating things, Co designing Co
experience. As curator, we try to to bridge
all these different aspects, mediating with different.
Players. Yeah.
Actors. And that's because even because
(44:21):
we decide to be a duo not to to make less of our ego and to
share more with the world. When you are in front of a
laptop or you are in front of the entrance of a gallery,
what's the journey? What do you get away from the at
(44:42):
the end of it? What did you take away?
And, and sometimes, but sometimes often is the very job
of the curator. Imagine yourself in the very
first viewer who comes in and you don't know who's this person
is. It could be a child.
(45:02):
What do? Where do you bring them?
What do they do? What do they see?
What do they perceive? What do they take away at the
end? Because we new technologies is
more fluid than you can choose, you can create your own part in
general. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's also this idea, the
(45:23):
aesthetic impact of of these devices.
I remember when I was curating the show of of Irma Blanc, who's
this, who you showed, by the way, in Mostin.
She was this very minimalist artist, German artist based in
Italy, who worked with sound. So she recorded the sound of the
(45:46):
making of her drawings and we included that in the exhibition
and I suggested the sound showers.
Everyone was appalled, includingIrma herself.
She was shocked. And I just said, but headsets
are much worse. And that because we wanted the
(46:10):
sound to be in the environment, but then we didn't want it to,
you know, we were kind of talking about how to place the
sound and how for it not to be cumbersome in the experience of
other areas of the exhibition. And yeah, it was received with
the utmost disgusts. And now you.
See them everywhere. There are some directional,
(46:32):
directional speakers now. They're quite amazing.
They're super almost invisible and you have this kind of a cut
through space where you hear thesound and then you step out and
you don't hear it anymore. It's.
Incredible. But I do love the showers.
I love the idea of the sound shower, first of all, and I like
them and I think they're interesting because The thing is
(46:53):
that it takes us so much time toaccept technologies.
When I curate shows, you know, Idon't hide the the cables.
If there's video, if there's any, it's part of the device.
What would be your dream exhibition?
An exhibition you haven't experienced that that you would
love to experience in the future?
As a duo or individually? If you can answer as you, I'm
(47:19):
going to be really impressed. I can reply for sure Alfredo if
I'm wrong it could be a mix between plants, mutual plants
or. Real plants.
And music for sure, because thisis our passion, that maybe
(47:40):
mixing all these things together, interesting for sure.
Plant poetry and music. That's a perfect triad.
Fantastic. Love it.
Beautiful. I, I love that.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming to the
podcast. Do you have anything that you
want to mention that you are involved in?
(48:03):
Any projects? Any things that we should be on
the lookout for? Maybe two things at the Media
Margins Museum talking about AI.You have to stop banging your
table. Come on.
Sorry. Sorry.
Me too. Sorry.
Yeah. Especially when you're
advertising your projects doing.Me, I look at me.
Look at me. Like this, holding my hand.
(48:28):
Dear listeners, we're all holding our hands.
Sorry, sorry. Alfredo, who keeps
gesticulating. I'm Italian.
I can't help. I was saying that at the Media
Matches Museum, we had an exhibition on the relationship
between AI and the investigativejournalism, which is because
it's called AR Nae and it's veryinterdisciplinary.
(48:51):
There are 20 artists, communication specialists,
journalists, obviously technologists.
Is is kind of an interesting take on what we knew, what we
currently know and what we mightnot know about the future.
So it's like a speculative part of it.
(49:12):
That's why I mean, it's really, really interesting with a lot of
digital flows, but also a lot ofobjects loans actually from from
museums. We are organized this massive
Congress in in the Arab world and between Doha, Dubai, Shah
Abu Dhabi. And the topic will be gender
(49:34):
empowerment. That is one of the topics here
in this country that, yeah. And it will be the second week
of April for like 100 curators. 7 days, four cities.
Pretty intense, but really good.Yeah, you are globetrotters for
sure. Yeah, well, thank you so much.
(49:56):
Thank. You.
Thank you. Thanks a lot, John.
It was a pleasure. Likewise, and let's do this
again somewhere in the midst of us.
Yes, I like it. Or in the past.
Let's do this. Or in the past at some point.
Well, take care and. Thank you.
Thanks for having us. Thank you.
Thank you.
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