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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00:00:08
Hello. Hi.
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Thank you so much for tuning in. Welcome to this episode, which
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is a guest episode where I talked to a curating duo who
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specializes in new technologies. And I have to say this
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conversation was really impactful.
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My perspective was shifted and that was because we didn't come
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from a place of dread or from a place of fear and prejudice.
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We didn't talk about robot ladies with bad wigs that can
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paint. We talked about the reality that
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is here. So while I'm recording this, an
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AI is cleaning my sound, it is producing snapshots, and it is
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transcribing what I'm saying. So we talked about that.
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We talked about those tools, about the metaverse, about so
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many things that surround us or that potentially will very soon
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and that artists are already using.
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The exciting part about this episode is that Alfredo and
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Aranda, so my two guests, know about concrete examples of
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artists using these technologies in ways that are really
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compelling and really exciting, and there are real artistic
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experiences and it really will change your mind.
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Leave me a comment if it didn't. This is kind of a dare almost.
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I'm really, really happy to have expanded into video, into new
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guests, although Emily's coming back in March and I'm very, very
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happy about the exhibition that we're going to talk about.
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I'm also on Sub Stack, by the way, started writing shorter
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texts again, and it's really exciting.
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So there's lots of ways for you to financially help.
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You can use the Blink that I have in the show's notes or in
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my website, exhibitionistpodcast.com,
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whatever suits you. There is so many ways for you to
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help and a small donation. I don't ask for big donations,
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although of course I'm not allergic to them.
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And to those who can't, they will be supported by you because
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I want to create accessible content.
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That is my ethos and that's what I believe in.
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So episodes will always be there for everyone.
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So those who can contribute, well, you will be helping those
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who cannot, you will make them feel better in knowing that I am
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getting paid for my work. That's it.
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That is my duty done. So go ahead and listen to this
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wonderful and intriguing, compelling and exciting and
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impactful conversation with Alfredo Gramerotti and out on
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that camera. Hello and welcome to
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Exhibitionists, the podcast where we visit exhibitions so
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that you have to or where we invite guests that expand the
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notion of exhibitions. They are exhibition goers,
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exhibition makers and agents in the contemporary art fields.
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So today I have a curating duo and they are going to answer the
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question, will AI kill the exhibition star?
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I know, I know, this is a bit of a sensationalist question, but I
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do have to drive people to the podcast.
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Fair enough. Listen, we do what we can, but
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it is a fair question. It is a fair question.
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So I'm going to introduce my two guests.
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Aranda Scalera is curator of art and hypermedia.
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She is lecturer at ESA in Paris. She's the curator of Lumen Prize
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and Art Dubai Digital. She was named as one of the top
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20 inspiring Women to look out for in 2023 by the New York City
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Journal, for attending the World Economic Forum in 2023 and 2024
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as part of 100 Women for Davos, speaking about Web 3 and
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Metaverse and as a speaker for the AI House.
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So really I'm I'm a bit impressed, I'm a bit intimidated
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here, but very honoured that you to be here.
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Alfredo Gramerotti, I met you when you were director of Mostin
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in Llandudno in Wales. You have gone from the green,
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very humid sea facing landscape of Wales to the heat of the
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desert. Still sea facing though, so the
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sea is a constant. True, still different sea, but
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still with the seascape, which is wonderful.
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So you are now the director of MMM Museum of Art, Media and
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Technology, Media Mileage Museum, which I'm probably
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mispronouncing, at Northwestern Qatar.
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You were also involved in Arts Dubai Digital and Co, curator of
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Nori Art Festival, also curator for the Maxi Bulgari Prize for
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Digital Arts. All of this in 2024.
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There would have been much more to say about your creating
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activities, obviously, but let's let's stick to that one.
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So Alfredo is also chair of the Digital strategies Committee for
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the International Association of Art Critics, advisor to the KSA
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Visual Arts Commission, UK Government Art Collection,
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British Council, Visual Arts Acquisition Committee and the
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Italian Ministry of Culture. So welcome.
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Thank you so much for being part of this conversation, for
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agreeing to be here. Welcome to exhibitionists.
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Thank you very much, exhibitionists.
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I'm very, very honored and glad to be here.
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All right, so I want to ease into the topic.
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I want to know a bit more about you as young people, as
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children, teenagers, young adults.
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Can you remember when in an exhibition or in a gallery or, I
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don't know, in the sculpture part, the first time you had a
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really strong encounter with an exhibition, with an artwork like
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a really aesthetic experience and tell us about it.
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Oh, gorgeous. I'll probably a fun story about
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because my parents, they used to bring me every two years.
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They are biennial in Venice and I remember that I was really
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young and Atoma, I still have this photo of my parents where I
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was under this big horse made by wood, probably by Cherily.
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I don't know who was the the the artist was at the Giardini or
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Biennial or the OR the banal and I was under because I was really
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short at the time I was under. So this was very, very young.
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I was really under this horse because I wanted to be on but
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was impossible, was not allowed to do that.
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And I started to cry. But I really loved this, this,
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this horse. I wanted to hug this, this
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horse. Talking about audience
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engagement here, right? I was already working in the
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arts. OK, So I was, it was, I was 30
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something. I had already a gallery in
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Italy. I moved to London.
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I had a residency as an artist. I was about to kind of a move
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to, to Berlin to study curatorial studies.
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So I was already immersed. There was one piece, that one
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experience that it really, really stuck with me and it was
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funnily enough in London and Archangel Commission and it was
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the Steve McQueen descent staged underneath the San Martes Hotel
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in that kind of a concrete sloping auditorium.
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I didn't know really much about his work.
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I didn't really know about how Archangel was working either.
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I was a bit outside those kind of a London centric type of sort
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of arts sort of award and and it really kind of, it blew my mind
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absolutely. So describe.
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Describe the experience and the and the.
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Work people were actually going into the which is next to
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Trafalgar Square is not far from me, the Saint Martin's Hotel.
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Apparently Saint Martin's Hotel was built upon a former cinema
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auditorium or something like that.
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It was just reopened at the time.
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It was early 2000 I think, and or 2000 even.
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Take modern opening that you know that kind of big push.
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It was a big moment. Yeah, yeah, it was a big moment.
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And then you enter the hotel and then you have to go down.
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I can't remember if it was a lift or some stairs, and you
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enter this super dark basement and the basement is not just a
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simple basement. It was a sloping basement
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because it was the former site of an auditorium.
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Obviously the seats were taken off and people were just sitting
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on the concrete waiting for something to happen.
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And you waited for a bit of a long time and then suddenly
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there was this kind of a screen pop up and and there was this
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kind of a rumor clanging metal cage descending something.
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And then at some point there was another screen on your back.
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So you have to turn around. There was something else.
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So it was Steve McQueen. This the journey of miners going
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underground to work. And so it was completely related
00:10:29
to the content of the film that the place where you were,
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obviously you were in central London.
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You were not in a mine, but still the the fact it was it was
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super powerful. And I still remember nowadays
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and and and probably you know that that that's is a moment.
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Actually, that's it kind of a so OK, this is not just about
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looking at things. It it's about how you perceive
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things, how you make things, how you create things, actually
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involving more than a dimension. An experience.
00:11:03
An immersive experience, Yeah. What was the exhibition
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experience that while you were were already on this path,
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confirmed this idea of yours? That it's really important to
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focus on these new technologies. For sure many, I mean many
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experience and many exhibition. For example, for me was the
00:11:28
involvement of poetry and technologies.
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That was the first time ever that poetry now is part of the
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contemporary art with Anna Maria Caballero or Sasha Style, and
00:11:44
they match performance poetry with new technologies.
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And because I'm a big fan about poetry, I thought, OK, this is
00:11:54
like my dream. And I thought, yes, I'm in the
00:11:59
right track now. Interesting.
00:12:01
So how does it, how does poetry like specifically for our
00:12:05
listeners visually or in terms of experience, How does that
00:12:10
work, this collaboration between advanced technologies, poetry
00:12:14
and visual arts? In general, they use voice for
00:12:21
interact with people or they use words to interact with people
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and even technologies because they collect for example gesture
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and they collect their voice, they collect sound and they
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translate all these experience in an artwork.
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They generate text itself, Yeah, that is presented as a poetry
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through, well, you mentioned AI at the beginning.
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That's also one of the way for me the, the, the catalyst to
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work on art and technology. Funnily enough, actually it was
00:13:02
also the conversation we had when we met years ago and we
00:13:08
started to work together as a curatorial duo.
00:13:11
That, that was that conversation actually that that was the
00:13:14
starting point because I mean, I have a background in, in design
00:13:19
and medium. So I did, you know, kind of
00:13:21
design, retail design in kind of a commercial design and then I
00:13:25
went into how many? Lives have you lived, Alfredo?
00:13:29
From your biography I would think you'd be like 95 years
00:13:32
old. Yeah, well, I'm almost there.
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You know, you are an art, you are not.
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And, you know, and then media, you know, the websites in the
00:13:42
90s, it was a fun, a fun thing to do.
00:13:45
Yeah. And, and, and radio and TV,
00:13:48
experimental TV, actually, you study digital arts in times
00:13:53
where there was no such a thing to work on.
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And, and so this conversation is OK that that's interesting
00:14:02
because for both of us, I think it represents a bit of an
00:14:06
expansion of the concept of arts and the practice of arts as
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well. And also the, the, both the
00:14:13
conceptualization and the, and the realization of arts.
00:14:18
So it wasn't really an exhibition or an event.
00:14:22
You might argue that actually that sort of a descent from from
00:14:28
Steve Mccleaney was a bit of like that We had our career in
00:14:33
contemporary art. That's a pure contemporary art
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if you want to use this word or this term.
00:14:40
But then realizing that, you know that there is a way also to
00:14:44
actually go expand it a bit and enlarge it.
00:14:49
And both in terms of the artists that you meet and you have
00:14:54
conversation with, but also the audiences that you might
00:14:58
encounter and you interact with having this expansion because
00:15:02
it's at the moment that's kind of a different audiences still
00:15:07
on two sides of the roads and we're bridging them.
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We'll talk about. That we'll talk about that one.
00:15:15
But actually, when I kind of started in in a, in a more
00:15:21
conscious way, thinking about these technologies was also a
00:15:24
meeting with an artist. It's in it's interesting art on
00:15:27
the that you said, you mentioned poetry because, well, you have,
00:15:32
I mean, poetry's been in the visual arts world with a semic
00:15:35
writing and also with graphic poetry.
00:15:39
But it is true that there's a real movement of writing into
00:15:44
the computer. And I was visiting an incredible
00:15:47
artist called John Hopkins. She lives in Sheffield and I
00:15:52
went to her studio and she does something absolutely incredible,
00:15:57
which is to use Chap GPT as a collaborator.
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And so she used to draw. So she put in the drawing
00:16:05
machine, the pencil she preferred to use when she drew.
00:16:09
And so the machine makes the drawing with a really typical,
00:16:15
you know, kind of tool like this sort of in temporal tool for us
00:16:19
in the 20th and 21st centuries. And she writes with Chachi PT
00:16:25
this incredible poetry. And I just remember reading the
00:16:30
poems and how they interact with the work and the drawings.
00:16:34
And she had this concept. Well, they had together.
00:16:37
It was Chachi PT 3, I remember at the time.
00:16:40
And so Chachi PT wrote about Bitmap Bees, which I it just, I
00:16:48
just had this aesthetic moment because Bitmap is this very old
00:16:54
software for graphic design that no one uses anymore.
00:16:57
So that's this idea of like, as if, as if you'd said the the
00:17:01
Egyptian pyramids, like there's this kind of idea of old tiny
00:17:05
stuff and the bees who are disappearing and the
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alliteration. Beautiful bitmap.
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I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful and I I love
00:17:14
poetry. I'm like you out on that.
00:17:16
I'm really into the written word and language and sound.
00:17:20
She taught me about ChatGPT. It was the first person and it
00:17:24
was an artist who taught me about this technology, which I
00:17:28
had a really hard time understanding, I have to say at
00:17:32
the time. And then a few months later, it
00:17:35
was all over. The place she's been.
00:17:37
Using this for a long time, you know, so that's, that's really,
00:17:42
that's really interesting. I also wanted to ask you out on
00:17:45
the about your project that I didn't mention in the
00:17:48
introduction you work with. Is it called multiplicity?
00:17:54
Yes. Right.
00:17:55
So it's the correlation between women and advanced technologies.
00:18:01
And I have a question out on the very specific which is are these
00:18:05
new technologies finally solve the problem of the invisibility
00:18:09
of women in art? And please say yes.
00:18:14
Well, Multi think it is a project that we founded together
00:18:19
with Alfredo because we saw that in new technologies there were a
00:18:24
lot of female artists, really a lot of them.
00:18:29
But at the time, I mean five year ago they were not so much
00:18:35
visibility. Then we thought, OK, we have to
00:18:39
work with them to support them. So we during all this process,
00:18:45
we discovered a lot of them even, I don't know, like, oh
00:18:52
gosh, Alfredo. Genesis Guy or?
00:18:57
Genesis guy? No.
00:18:58
Florence, Yeah. Florence Brooke.
00:19:00
Yeah. She was one of the first coder.
00:19:04
Yeah. Yes, I mean and no one know
00:19:08
about her and she's an amazing artist.
00:19:12
We work with her for our Dubai Some festival and we try not to
00:19:16
support her in her practice and Genesis Skies for instance, she
00:19:23
worked with an avatar that represents herself, is a grow
00:19:28
avatar than the avatar grow with her and many many other.
00:19:34
I mean, there are some gem there that need to be discovered, need
00:19:39
to be promoted and what? This is the purpose of
00:19:42
multiplicity? OK, well.
00:19:45
But you haven't. You haven't answered the
00:19:46
question. New technologies, are they
00:19:53
finally, I mean, I'm not saying like putting women at the top,
00:19:57
but just kind of creating. An equality.
00:19:59
Equality that. Would be great.
00:20:02
Yes, yes, yes. Because for example, if we think
00:20:05
about Krista Kim, for example, is one of the top artists on
00:20:11
party new technologies and many others are there and yeah.
00:20:16
There is a trajectory in that sense, yeah.
00:20:19
I mean, we started Multiplicity as a, as a publishing platform
00:20:23
to, we made a lot of interviews with women artists working with
00:20:27
technology and we, and the idea that we published everyone and
00:20:31
then we published the 1st 15 and we ran out of time, obviously,
00:20:35
because it was, they started to invite us to curate exhibition
00:20:38
about this, this artist. And, but we started because I
00:20:43
mean, the especially at the boom of the digital art market, 95%
00:20:51
of the artists in the market were male.
00:20:54
And, and you know, 9 out of 10, the top digital art, the top 7
00:21:00
digit art, they were male. The only one was the singer.
00:21:08
Grimes. Grimes is not even a visual
00:21:12
artist, but you know, that's really frustrating.
00:21:16
You have the historical patterns of women artists.
00:21:20
In the 70s in New York with the big American obstruction,
00:21:24
American expressionist movement, there was an incredible amount
00:21:27
of female artists working incredibly hard, completely
00:21:32
invisible. And they got the solar show and
00:21:35
the retrospective 60 years later when almost them the kind of the
00:21:41
dead. There was a bit of a pattern
00:21:43
repeating really. And so that's why we started.
00:21:47
And I think, you know, I don't know personally, I wouldn't say
00:21:51
that is equal, Still no. It's more.
00:21:55
Equal I mean, but for sure it's more equal I.
00:21:57
Found the video on YouTube. There was quite recent talk that
00:22:02
you did that you participated in at Spark Vienna, the art fair
00:22:07
with Thomas Hoosher, who is an ethics AI specialist.
00:22:13
And his interventions were really interesting to me because
00:22:16
he kept talking about the menace on the notion of authorship,
00:22:23
which for me, you know, in our generation, we grew up with the
00:22:29
conceptualists, with Holland Bachht, and, you know, all of
00:22:32
these authors who were kind of trying to negotiate or replace
00:22:38
or shift perspectives on the idea of authorship.
00:22:41
And now we're in a market that's that became really conservative
00:22:45
in that sense. Again, we're looking at a lot of
00:22:47
painting, we're looking at a lot of stuff on the wall that say to
00:22:52
simplify things, which is obviously tied into authorship,
00:22:56
which is obviously not anathema in the in, in, in, let's say,
00:23:02
avant-garde art. But it is discussed in some
00:23:05
ways. And I was surprised to see that
00:23:09
that was kind of the point that was picked up by the ethical
00:23:13
aspects of AII. Would be interested in knowing
00:23:17
what your position on that and also your experience because you
00:23:21
actually have the experience of working with artists who are
00:23:24
developing aesthetic projects in with those advanced
00:23:29
technologies. Yes.
00:23:32
I mean for the artists, for example, they use all these
00:23:38
advanced technologies and AI or all the other new technologies
00:23:45
are tools. They use these advanced
00:23:49
technologies as tools. Then the question about the
00:23:54
authorship is more by outside as philosopher, as curator, as
00:24:02
museum director, as general audience that ask to themselves,
00:24:06
because you see like the eye, like devil and something that is
00:24:12
an alien things that can steal your creativity.
00:24:16
But in general, the artist, they integrate all these new
00:24:22
technologies with their practice, with their artwork.
00:24:27
It's more about us that we ask to ourself about something that
00:24:34
we cannot handle because we don't know how to build an AI.
00:24:38
But there is inside an AI, there are some data that is kind of
00:24:44
big black hole of unknown things.
00:24:48
It's true. Yeah, this is very true,
00:24:52
actually. I, I, I agree.
00:24:54
The, the there are two aspects, the ethical and the authorship.
00:24:58
I think they're a bit also different.
00:25:01
I mean, the Thomas in his talk was pointing to the authorship
00:25:05
part because he was very keen to say, you know, without human
00:25:14
there wouldn't be technology type of thing.
00:25:18
So let's bear it in mind that we created them, so somehow we need
00:25:23
to control them or we will have the possibility to control them.
00:25:27
So it was very time in the conversation back to the human.
00:25:35
I'm not super sure about that. I have to say personally, and
00:25:42
but it's true that, you know, the, the authorship is, is for
00:25:45
sure is, is fluctuating to say the least, because our artists
00:25:51
recognize also that there is a form of authorship in machine
00:25:56
learning. They do recognize, I mean, they,
00:25:59
I mean to to and we were discussing yesterday with our
00:26:04
own on the phone. It was a less, you know what,
00:26:06
it's the AI. What is it?
00:26:08
It's like a combination between, I don't know, the, the Yellow
00:26:12
Pages photography and the steam engine, you know, something that
00:26:16
really changed the way we live and the way we, we, we, we
00:26:20
create things we for work or for personal life.
00:26:24
So you cannot really deny there are some sort of authorship
00:26:27
aspect on it because that's, it's ingrain in the mechanism.
00:26:31
And I think good artists are good artists, artists who really
00:26:34
study the matter and they know the technology.
00:26:37
They kind of recognize that and they're fine.
00:26:40
You know, they, they can, they can, they can write, they can
00:26:44
code and they can somehow measure the way they want.
00:26:48
And some of them they don't want to measure because they're kind
00:26:51
of enjoying the, the, the ride, so to speak, and be surprised at
00:26:55
what comes back and integrated that kind of in their own
00:26:58
creative process, which is not only their process.
00:27:02
It is, but it is not so that the, the ownership is
00:27:05
fluctuating. It's to me it's quite clear and
00:27:10
I don't think we need to be scared about that, no.
00:27:15
And it's probably happened the same at the same time when
00:27:19
photography was introduced under than 50 years ago.
00:27:23
What's happened? The book.
00:27:24
The book. Or the book The Gutenberg.
00:27:27
Yes, the Gutenberg, Yeah. If you go back to that history,
00:27:30
it's beautiful to read the text as humans would no longer be
00:27:34
able to focus on anything outside of the written word.
00:27:39
They would lose memory, They would lose their relationship to
00:27:42
experience. So we've always been afraid of
00:27:46
technologies. And there's even a really
00:27:48
interesting theorist, Vilan Flusa, who connected the book
00:27:53
with the idea of technology. And it is the first phone, if
00:27:56
you think about it. I mean, it's a very small device
00:28:00
that you open and suddenly opens.
00:28:02
I would, I would push it even further.
00:28:04
Joanna, the book is the first version of the Metalers.
00:28:08
Yeah, there we go. OK.
00:28:10
OK. I have.
00:28:12
So many questions. Now I have, OK, let's do this,
00:28:18
let's do this, let's play the game.
00:28:21
We have to now help our listeners because we need to
00:28:26
help ourselves or help me, which is tell me what the metaverse
00:28:31
is. You've already explained what AI
00:28:34
is in a very surrealist Dolly like painting.
00:28:39
How would you explain the metaverse?
00:28:41
And then I have an example of an AI powered artwork that I
00:28:47
experienced recently and that I would love to discuss with you.
00:28:51
So Metaverse, the platform is yours.
00:28:55
You want to go first. I can't explain something maybe
00:29:02
about maybe a bit provocative, but I would say that AI and the
00:29:07
metaverse are both worth building technologies just like
00:29:13
Dante built his Divine Comedy. And AI allows how to create the
00:29:20
new realities by simulating intelligence and can generate
00:29:26
art, new process, interact with us and with feeling human.
00:29:32
That's it. I mean, maybe.
00:29:35
I love that idea because we all know that a book is not a
00:29:40
computer, but I think it talks a lot about the desire of
00:29:46
worlding, of creating worlds that we have as humans, and how
00:29:51
scary the idea of literature and storytelling in images has
00:29:56
always been to theorists. I mean, since Plato, since this
00:30:00
idea that you can suddenly double and multiply what we know
00:30:05
reality to be for philosophers is really scary.
00:30:09
But for us spectators or readers or whatever you want to call it,
00:30:14
it is incredibly exciting. And so I love that relationship
00:30:17
with Dante's Inferno or Heaven. I don't know it can be it.
00:30:22
Can be, it's very true. I mean, the thing you said about
00:30:25
doubling and multiplying, that's that's a good definition of the
00:30:28
metaverse, and the book is precisely that.
00:30:31
You're going to have to. Do OK, maybe the metaverse as a
00:30:37
comps that always stayed with us.
00:30:39
It's just it's the format of the metaverse that's changing.
00:30:44
You know, you have The Cave and then you have the book, the
00:30:47
printing press, you have the video film, you know, film.
00:30:53
It's kind of a bring you somewhere.
00:30:56
If it is a good film. The metaverse is not really much
00:31:01
different from that is a, is a form of other reality that you
00:31:05
can, you can be, you can do things that you cannot really do
00:31:10
practically speaking in this room.
00:31:13
Arunda is always a very good advocate about the fact that our
00:31:17
experiences, it will be through technology will be very, very
00:31:21
individualized. There will be almost internal
00:31:23
experiences as we progress and the metabase will well there is
00:31:29
a lot of wearable devices that are coming up.
00:31:34
Now there are this new trend about wearable device, wearable
00:31:38
computer, wearable phone. Glasses, chips, whatever tactile
00:31:47
that expand your perceptions basically there.
00:31:51
Is this new trend and all the experience with this wearable
00:31:55
computer phone lens wherever everyone is going to have their
00:32:01
own experience, they own artwork inside this kind of metal verse
00:32:09
and with this new wearable computer, even with microchip
00:32:12
that is they are going to incept in your in your skin.
00:32:16
We had some friends that they they, they have this.
00:32:20
Use it. That is is going.
00:32:22
I mean, it's happening now. They pay for the metro.
00:32:26
They pay for the metro, yeah. Yeah, no, when you go on to the
00:32:31
subway or the Tube or the Metro, you just put your hand.
00:32:35
Or your watch. Beep and and.
00:32:38
Now the watch. Is fine, I can live with that.
00:32:40
But the hands like a microchip under your skin.
00:32:43
They wow. Anyway, yeah.
00:32:46
That's incredible. Yeah, Yeah.
00:32:48
We have this notion of the metaverse that is a bit of a
00:32:52
like Second Life in this kind of a virtual platform.
00:32:55
I mean, Second Life is tiny version of a potential
00:33:01
metaphors, but a book, a book is a book is another one.
00:33:05
Second Life, it was, I think it was from the 90s.
00:33:08
It was a website basically where you could, you could log in, you
00:33:13
could have an avatar, you could buy land and then you you could
00:33:16
buy properties. I remember actually the an
00:33:20
article from a newspaper. There was a Chinese lady who
00:33:24
spent $1 to buy a plot of land on the metal.
00:33:28
On. The on on Second Life, I think.
00:33:31
I did my first virtual exhibition there.
00:33:35
You're joking. No.
00:33:37
I'll raise you in regards to the question of authorship at the
00:33:42
Serpentine N Gallery show called The Call by Holly, Holly Herndon
00:33:49
and Matt Dryhurst. And it is a really interesting
00:33:53
exhibition because you go into the space and you have these
00:33:59
sculptures that are white and gold like Christian Church
00:34:04
sculptures that don't look exactly like the ones you would
00:34:07
find in in churches. And the project is that they
00:34:11
worked along with the digital specialized team at the
00:34:17
Serpentine Gallery with different choirs across the UK
00:34:22
to train the AI to sing in the same style as the choirs.
00:34:30
And so the experiences you have is that you have two rooms that
00:34:34
you go into, there's a microphone.
00:34:36
Suddenly you're in either a funereal home or in the really
00:34:41
unknown episode of Twin Peaks. So there's that microphone like
00:34:45
solipsistically standing there. And so you walk towards it and
00:34:50
you sing and the AI sings back to you through the learnt
00:34:56
experience of having the data of the choirs put into it.
00:35:04
I guess I don't know what the term would be.
00:35:06
So the notion of skill of the artist and authorship has moved
00:35:10
from creating the framework and no longer being the makers in
00:35:19
terms of a source of a craft. The craft is someone else's and
00:35:23
they create the framework and bring the the device, let's say,
00:35:28
or the software or the advanced technology that will allow them
00:35:33
to create that situation. Did you experience that show?
00:35:38
Did you see it? What did you think of it?
00:35:40
18 choirs all across the UK from the South to something like that
00:35:45
yeah and they train they basically ask them to to sing
00:35:49
one piece, the same piece for all the choirs.
00:35:54
And basically they train machine learning to learn the style of
00:36:02
the different choirs on that piece of music basically.
00:36:07
And I found it fascinating because it's it's a good example
00:36:12
how you can expand your work as a contemporary artist and
00:36:19
creating also some, weirdly enough, creating some form of a
00:36:23
community through this technological experiments if you
00:36:27
want. And also not only through the
00:36:30
participant, but the audiences as well, because it's a very
00:36:33
traditional is almost the static cannons for that show.
00:36:38
They're very traditional. You have the choir song that
00:36:42
everyone recognized. The codes are very known to the
00:36:45
general audiences, at least in Europe, and you have the
00:36:50
ornaments. They designed the ornaments and
00:36:53
in 3D. They printed everything in 3D.
00:36:57
Oh, so the first sort of furniture's.
00:36:59
Correct. Yes, they use, there is also
00:37:01
beautiful etching the child's that you end when you when you
00:37:06
enter, you see that one, if I'm not mistaken, it's they use
00:37:10
their son to do that. So it's also it's a very kind of
00:37:14
almost romantic type of approach where you, you create a piece of
00:37:20
contemporary yard very, very rooted in what is a classical
00:37:24
tradition. And but you really went beyond
00:37:28
the traditional use super advanced technology and machine
00:37:31
learning to re experience that Why in a in a different way.
00:37:34
And it's true. When you enter, you have the two
00:37:36
rooms and the microphone and you sing or you say, or you whistle
00:37:43
and you produce any kind of sound, you produce any kind of
00:37:47
sound and, and that respond back.
00:37:49
And that also goes back into the database by the way.
00:37:54
Oh, does it? Oh, I didn't realize that I I
00:37:56
sang the Beastie Boys. One of the best, my Beastie
00:37:59
Boys. Fantastic.
00:38:00
That's that's it's in there now. It's in there now.
00:38:05
So I'm interested in that project because there's this
00:38:11
mixture of religious iconography and particularly the child.
00:38:16
You're very right in pointing that out because there is this
00:38:20
philosopher in Portugal called extinct de Silva.
00:38:23
I mean, he passed away a long time ago.
00:38:25
And he had this idea that machines would liberate humans
00:38:30
and that they would end our the, the, this this condition of
00:38:37
being slaves to the grind, if you will.
00:38:40
And he also compared the, let's say, Christian narrative, let's
00:38:48
put it that way. And he interpreted it in the way
00:38:51
that now we, we are in the era of the child we finally
00:38:55
achieved. So it's a teleological obviously
00:38:57
relationship, the time and history.
00:38:59
When you mentioned the child, I thought of him because I did, I
00:39:02
didn't notice there was the, this kind of the, the figure of
00:39:06
the angels, let's say, was kind of taken in that exhibition.
00:39:10
And I, and now that you mention it, I, I thought of that
00:39:12
philosopher. And the idea is that the child
00:39:16
is the openness is the absence of demagogic ideologies, of
00:39:25
frontiers of cruelty. So yeah, I, I found that
00:39:30
interesting that the iconography was, was present there.
00:39:34
And I thought it might be a bit shocking for some people to take
00:39:37
something so traditional and associated with AI.
00:39:41
But it can also be convincing in the sense that it can tell you
00:39:44
listen. This can expand and can continue
00:39:47
to exist in some other form. What I what I like about the
00:39:52
project is also that they make the whole experience very, very
00:39:56
accessible to anybody who steps into the gathering.
00:40:00
Yes, because you can even. Not read the thing, cannot
00:40:05
really, you know, just experience the sound and the and
00:40:10
the iconography, the ornament if you want and still get a good
00:40:14
experience even without knowing the background and the and the
00:40:18
process of it. Yes, and that's something else I
00:40:22
wanted to discuss with you because I so I went with a
00:40:25
friend and we, she reads the texts at the entrance of
00:40:29
exhibitions. I don't always do that.
00:40:31
I tend not to do it. And so I read the text with her
00:40:35
and I just felt her cringe like she was, and she used that word.
00:40:39
It's explained in the way that it puts AI at the front of the
00:40:42
experience. And I would love you to tell me
00:40:46
about that, about how to manage people's expectations,
00:40:49
anxieties, excitement as well in regards to these new
00:40:53
technologies and exhibition spaces.
00:40:55
And my friend was saying AI is not that complicated.
00:40:58
It's easy to understand. I was like, OK, well, you tell
00:41:00
me what it is then. But you know, we we all have an
00:41:03
idea by now. I think she's quite right.
00:41:05
We all kind of know what that's about.
00:41:07
I mean, everyone's curious about it.
00:41:09
I think that there is kind of duality in this moment because
00:41:14
people really feel that is something that is alien,
00:41:18
something that is not human. And in the other hand, there is
00:41:22
a big curiosity about. And the key to understand the AI
00:41:30
isn't about replacing artists, but it's about more creating new
00:41:36
possibility, collaborating together, cooperation, this kind
00:41:40
of stuff. I.
00:41:45
Mean AI, it's we don't think about what you're right, John.
00:41:48
I mean, you take an Uber is machine learning that that that
00:41:53
is so ingrained in our daily life that we don't just notice
00:41:57
it And and also the scary bits, you know, facial recognitions,
00:42:02
cloud control, security system, airport check in.
00:42:07
I mean, you do have a lot of things where AI is very, very
00:42:10
present and you don't you're not in control of your data for
00:42:14
sure, but how to mediate to an audience in art and cultural
00:42:21
context. Sorry, it's a bit kind of a auto
00:42:27
celebration maybe, but I think it downs to the curator.
00:42:32
I think there is a big curatorial gap still in the
00:42:40
curator who works in staging exhibition or contemporary art
00:42:44
or modern art or classic art and curator actually work with a
00:42:48
digital and advanced technology because the two set of skills
00:42:53
are not really bridged. So you have digital art curator
00:42:59
and had no clue how to create an interpretation plan for an
00:43:05
exhibition or an audience engagement plan or whatever.
00:43:10
And conversely, museum curators that they don't even touch
00:43:14
someone, you know, working with blockchain because that's a
00:43:20
scam. So that you have this kind of
00:43:23
very 2 sort of side, let's say, of the curatorial practice and
00:43:30
the scholarship so far, At least there are some people who can
00:43:35
bridge. We try to bridge very much as a
00:43:38
curatorial duo. Like you say you were saying, I
00:43:42
mean now you have to mediate with a lot of different things
00:43:50
like AI artist, curator. And our philosophy now is like
00:43:58
about Co curating things, Co creating things, Co designing Co
00:44:04
experience. As curator, we try to to bridge
00:44:10
all these different aspects, mediating with different.
00:44:16
Players. Yeah.
00:44:17
Actors. And that's because even because
00:44:21
we decide to be a duo not to to make less of our ego and to
00:44:30
share more with the world. When you are in front of a
00:44:34
laptop or you are in front of the entrance of a gallery,
00:44:38
what's the journey? What do you get away from the at
00:44:42
the end of it? What did you take away?
00:44:46
And, and sometimes, but sometimes often is the very job
00:44:53
of the curator. Imagine yourself in the very
00:44:56
first viewer who comes in and you don't know who's this person
00:45:00
is. It could be a child.
00:45:02
What do? Where do you bring them?
00:45:04
What do they do? What do they see?
00:45:06
What do they perceive? What do they take away at the
00:45:08
end? Because we new technologies is
00:45:11
more fluid than you can choose, you can create your own part in
00:45:17
general. Yeah.
00:45:19
Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's also this idea, the
00:45:23
aesthetic impact of of these devices.
00:45:27
I remember when I was curating the show of of Irma Blanc, who's
00:45:34
this, who you showed, by the way, in Mostin.
00:45:37
She was this very minimalist artist, German artist based in
00:45:41
Italy, who worked with sound. So she recorded the sound of the
00:45:46
making of her drawings and we included that in the exhibition
00:45:49
and I suggested the sound showers.
00:45:53
Everyone was appalled, including Irma herself.
00:46:00
She was shocked. And I just said, but headsets
00:46:06
are much worse. And that because we wanted the
00:46:10
sound to be in the environment, but then we didn't want it to,
00:46:13
you know, we were kind of talking about how to place the
00:46:17
sound and how for it not to be cumbersome in the experience of
00:46:21
other areas of the exhibition. And yeah, it was received with
00:46:26
the utmost disgusts. And now you.
00:46:29
See them everywhere. There are some directional,
00:46:32
directional speakers now. They're quite amazing.
00:46:34
They're super almost invisible and you have this kind of a cut
00:46:40
through space where you hear the sound and then you step out and
00:46:43
you don't hear it anymore. It's.
00:46:45
Incredible. But I do love the showers.
00:46:47
I love the idea of the sound shower, first of all, and I like
00:46:51
them and I think they're interesting because The thing is
00:46:53
that it takes us so much time to accept technologies.
00:46:57
When I curate shows, you know, I don't hide the the cables.
00:47:01
If there's video, if there's any, it's part of the device.
00:47:04
What would be your dream exhibition?
00:47:08
An exhibition you haven't experienced that that you would
00:47:11
love to experience in the future?
00:47:13
As a duo or individually? If you can answer as you, I'm
00:47:19
going to be really impressed. I can reply for sure Alfredo if
00:47:28
I'm wrong it could be a mix between plants, mutual plants
00:47:34
or. Real plants.
00:47:36
And music for sure, because this is our passion, that maybe
00:47:40
mixing all these things together, interesting for sure.
00:47:46
Plant poetry and music. That's a perfect triad.
00:47:50
Fantastic. Love it.
00:47:52
Beautiful. I, I love that.
00:47:54
Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming to the
00:47:57
podcast. Do you have anything that you
00:48:00
want to mention that you are involved in?
00:48:03
Any projects? Any things that we should be on
00:48:06
the lookout for? Maybe two things at the Media
00:48:10
Margins Museum talking about AI. You have to stop banging your
00:48:14
table. Come on.
00:48:15
Sorry. Sorry.
00:48:16
Me too. Sorry.
00:48:17
Yeah. Especially when you're
00:48:18
advertising your projects doing. Me, I look at me.
00:48:23
Look at me. Like this, holding my hand.
00:48:28
Dear listeners, we're all holding our hands.
00:48:30
Sorry, sorry. Alfredo, who keeps
00:48:33
gesticulating. I'm Italian.
00:48:36
I can't help. I was saying that at the Media
00:48:40
Matches Museum, we had an exhibition on the relationship
00:48:43
between AI and the investigative journalism, which is because
00:48:47
it's called AR Nae and it's very interdisciplinary.
00:48:51
There are 20 artists, communication specialists,
00:48:55
journalists, obviously technologists.
00:48:59
Is is kind of an interesting take on what we knew, what we
00:49:05
currently know and what we might not know about the future.
00:49:10
So it's like a speculative part of it.
00:49:12
That's why I mean, it's really, really interesting with a lot of
00:49:14
digital flows, but also a lot of objects loans actually from from
00:49:19
museums. We are organized this massive
00:49:22
Congress in in the Arab world and between Doha, Dubai, Shah
00:49:29
Abu Dhabi. And the topic will be gender
00:49:34
empowerment. That is one of the topics here
00:49:38
in this country that, yeah. And it will be the second week
00:49:42
of April for like 100 curators. 7 days, four cities.
00:49:48
Pretty intense, but really good. Yeah, you are globetrotters for
00:49:53
sure. Yeah, well, thank you so much.
00:49:56
Thank. You.
00:49:56
Thank you. Thanks a lot, John.
00:49:58
It was a pleasure. Likewise, and let's do this
00:50:02
again somewhere in the midst of us.
00:50:04
Yes, I like it. Or in the past.
00:50:06
Let's do this. Or in the past at some point.
00:50:10
Well, take care and. Thank you.
00:50:11
Thanks for having us. Thank you.
00:50:13
Thank you.