The media specificity of generative artificial intelligence: What is the agency of artists in relation to AI? Is there something that only AI can create, affect or generate? How do we practice along with it? In order to understand these questions, our investigation begins by opening up the “black box” of generative AI via programming. We examine image-diffusion and the complex pipelining of multiple models working behind it. AI shows emergent computational artifacts, from non-words that have computational meaning, cultural/algorithmic biases in generated touristic images, to dynamic patterns that only exist using feedback to “hack” the models. We will talk about how our practices and interests emerged and how we map the abstract landscapes of AI, from the intangible algorithmic software to the tangible materiality of hardware infrastructures.

Ting-Chun Liu, a media artist, researcher and half-baked programmer from Taiwan, is concerned with networks, algorithms in art and the critical artificial intelligence. His practice includes audiovisual media, performances and installations, incorporating feedback mechanisms to explore the biases and novelties of generative AI and reflects on the socio-political dimensions of technology and art. He currently teaches and works as an artistic associate at the Bauhaus University Weimar.
Leon-Etienne Kühr is a researcher, programmer, and media artist who repurposes methods from information visualization and data science. His artistic work explores how our current algorithmic landscape shapes a future driven by the machine-machine feedback loop. His explorations raise questions about the role of algorithms in the often-prophesied collapse of AI models, emergent behaviors, and artifacts of contingency. He is currently a scientific associate at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach, co-leading the Artificial Intelligence Lab.

Lecture Series
Photography in AI Crisis #3 |
FB Design | Prof. Achim Mohné

In cooperation with
„Digitale Werkstatt“ and
supported by the FH Dortmund programme
„Internationalisierung von Studium und Lehre“