ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI
EXPANDED ART X VCA
18-23 APRIL
LOCATION: BERLIN

In a world where technological advancements happen in the blink of an eye, AI is being pointed to in the cultural zeitgeist as an example of a potentially bleak and ominous future.

It is worth considering, however, the ways computers and machine learning can push forward creativity, human connection and philosophical dialogues.

In the exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI, 17 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future.
  

CURATOR'S NOTE 

by Anika Meier & Margaret Murphy

EXPANDED.ART is pleased to present the group exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI in collaboration with VerticalCrypto Art in Berlin. 17 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future.

In a world where technological advancements happen in the blink of an eye, AI is being pointed to in the cultural zeitgeist as an example of a potentially bleak and ominous future. It is worth considering, however, the ways computers and machine learning can push forward creativity, human connection and philosophical dialogues.

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY

For a while now, the world has been feeling increasingly off-kilter. It’s familiar and deeply foreign simultaneously: wars, pandemics, conspiracies. Ideas we hold as true changing overnight. ANOTHER AMERICA by Phillip Toledano is a reflection of this uncertain world. It shows us the familiar, but not. Set in the late 1940s, a time close to the beginning of photography, when a photograph was the truth. Finally, how else to address the idea of uncertainty than with the technology, Artificial Intelligence, that is making the world uncertain.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT by Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek reflects the dawn of a new era shaped by AI. Everything as we know it will change. We can no longer trust photography; the boundaries between fiction and reality have become fluid.

LONGING by Olivera Đurđević seeks to capture the visual essence of longing and the search for solace in the face of loss. Đurđević, inspired by the passing of her late father, uses AI to process her grief. The landscapes often feature small, distant figures and lost animals enveloped in a haze, symbolizing the arduous process of letting go and the emotional turmoil that arises from losing a loved one. Đurđević also showcases AI’s ability in reimagining the 19th-century photographic printing process known as gum bichromate. Each piece in this collection was crafted using solely AI algorithms, paying homage to the delicate balance of beauty and nostalgia that characterized the original process.

BEYOND THE BINARY WORLD

THE ANGELS by Anna Condo is her subtle way of saying "I care about you and your future". When she stumbled by accident onto one of the ANGELS' outputs, she almost walked off, thinking they looked too real, too Teen Vogue. But the angels wouldn’t leave her mind. She remembered being a teenager and wanting to be taken seriously and not seen as an object of desire. "The treatment of women in the world remains horrendous. Abortion still being an issue today is primitive, disappointing, and infuriating. My heart goes out to all the young women and men, too, whose lives are manipulated as if they were mere puppets by self-serving hypocrites", Condo says.AMARANTHINE REVERIES by Ellie Pritts is a collection of AI-animated self-portrait videos exploring the boundaries between our physical bodies and the essence of who we are at our core. In Pritts’ practice using themselves as source material with AI, the artist finds that the AI feels much more empathetic to who they are than they do to themselves. The outputs are devoid of inner criticism and body dysmorphia, an unexpected but ultimately very liberating result.

ALGORITHMIC ZONES OF PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY by Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth presents noise nearing the possibility of empathy, deflected by the bias for form and the limitations of gender. They explore seven empty semantic zones in order to locate the possibility of sensitivity and sensibility in the latent space of a text-to-image diffusion model. This series uses object pronouns, which represent the recipients of actions, as a means to probe empathy. The resulting pictorial outputs expose a potential zone of sensibility in the model's latent space, as well as the barriers to that potential.

WATER BODY by Kira Xonorika deals with the binaries between man and woman, East and West, human and animal, and human and non-human intelligence that have been created to solidify colonial power infrastructures in the West. However, we often see in nature and beyond how these boundaries are always blurry. This collaborative work with AI connects ancestral and feminized aquatic mythologies through digital skins to reimagine future visions.

Combing artificial intelligence with the practices of magic and alchemy, DWELLERS BETWEEN THE WATERS by Crosslucid seeks possible solutions in response to the traumas of contemporary anthropos and examines how artificial intelligence, in terms of artistic practice, remains integral to our contemporary condition, that is, the ever-evolving climate crisis and the sixth extinction of species, coupled with wars, inflation, and capitalist exploitations.

THE PROMISE OF A SUPERIOR AI

EMP LAB by Lars Nagler is a glimpse into a large science complex that represents the big brain of AI. At least, that's how Nagler imagines it. Many small groups are working in multidisciplinary ways to try to answer the question of the exhibition: What are the promises of AI? The AI draws from a great wealth of knowledge and imagines itself. There are young groups that playfully work on synthetic-organic interfaces. There are holodeck levels on which final haptic tests are carried out. There are sleep labs where mind expansion and awareness reign supreme. For Nagler, working with AI is an alchemical process. Diverse and nuanced ingredients result in the expected or even more surprising results and artworks. It is supremely satisfying to take up a narration of your own.

Skye Nicolas examines ChatGPT’s declarative arguments on why AI-created art is intellectually superior, using the prompt: “Provide a digital minimalist conceptual art piece making the argument why AI-created art is intellectually superior and why it should be minted as an NFT.” In the series THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART, Nicolas extends his exploration of text-rich triptychs with META PROSE, a conceptual exercise in authorship using AI technology to produce artworks from a flowing stream of online collective consciousness.

YELLOW FILM, from the series ABSTRACT SPACE by Chiara Passa, is a contemplative artwork built by queries asked of GPT3, answers obtained by manipulating images through GAN, and music generated by an AI. The artwork shows a minimalist space that narrates the void through the vision of a place in continuous transformation. The minimalist space is designed by the shadows of geometric volumes created by extruding the silhouette of the primitives along the direction of the light source. A new, vibrant place arises under the eyes of the viewers, oscillating between virtual and real perception.

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI: 18-23 APRIL 2023

ARTISTS: Anna Condo, Crosslucid, Marco DeAngelis, Olivera Đurđević, FAR, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, Veronica Kuri, Richard Nadler, Lars Nagler, Skye Nicolas, Chiara Passa, Ellie Pritts, Phillip Toledano, Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth, Ziyang Wu, Kira Xonorika

OPENING: 18 APRIL | 6-9 PM CET | EXPANDED.ART | Friedrichstraße 67 | Berlin

OPENING HOURS: Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

TWITTER SPACES
The artists will join EXPANDED.ART and VerticalCrypto Art on Twitter to celebrate the launch of their NFTs, and to discuss their artworks and the promises of AI.

19 APRIL | 5 PM CEST
Anna Condo, Crosslucid, Lars Nagler: confirmed, Kira Xonorika, Ellie Pritts, Marco DeAngelis, Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth, Olivera Đurđević

21 APRIL | 5 PM CEST
Phillip Toledano, Richard Nadler, Skye Nicolas, Chiara Passa, Ziyang Wu, Veronica Kuri, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, FAR

NFT RELEASE SCHEDULE
The NFTs will be minted on Ethereum and Tezos and will be available to collect on VerticalCrypto Art. The artists will release 1/1s and limited editions created in collaboration with AI.

19 APRIL | 6 PM CEST | 12 PM ET | 9 AM PT
Anna Condo, Crosslucid, Lars Nagler: confirmed, Kira Xonorika, Ellie Pritts, Marco DeAngelis, Mikey Woodbridge & Ezra Shibboleth, Olivera Đurđević

21 APRIL | 6 PM CEST | 12 PM ET | 9 AM PT
Phillip Toledano, Richard Nadler, Skye Nicolas, Chiara Passa, Ziyang Wu, Veronica Kuri, Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek, FAR

 
Anna Condo

THE ANGELS
2023

“As an AI language model, I do not have personal beliefs or opinions, as I am a machine designed to process and generate information based on data and algorithms. My responses are based on the information and data that I have been trained on, and I am programmed to provide factual and informative responses to the best of my ability. The concept of angels exists in various religious and spiritual traditions, and the belief in angels is a matter of personal faith and interpretation.”
– ChatGPT, April 2023

 
Marco DeAngelis

ALGO CHILD
2023

ALGO CHILD by Marco DeAngelis highlights the relationship between the human and non-human, in this highly informatized era. Does the archetypal gesture of a mother feel the same if applied to anything? The aim is to spark a personal reflection on the nature of love and emotions, and ultimately on what makes us humans.

Crosslucid

IT IS NOT A MIRROR, BUT A WINDOW
2023

DWELLERS BETWEEN THE WATERS by Crosslucid is conjured as a series of hybrid rituals that mediate the space between physical presence, trauma, memory, healing, and virtuality. 

Polyphonic in its artificially intelligent framework, Dwellers Between the Waters could be experienced as a happening that is chanted by various elemental entities such as waters, winds, earth, air, and algorithms, as well as poetry, history, magic, and human and more-than-human creatures. This happening of digital rituals questions the singularity of humanist perception of reality. Co-performing with artificial intelligence, it attempts to create alternative epistemologies and outlooks on reality through rendering multi-focal narratives and embedding psycho-magical practice in forms of living SIGILS.

Combing artificial intelligence with the practices of magic and alchemy, DWELLERS BETWEEN THE WATERS seeks possible solutions in response to the traumas of contemporary anthropos and examines how artificial intelligence, in terms of artistic practice, remains integral to our contemporary condition, that is, the ever-evolving climate crisis and the sixth extinction of species, coupled with wars, inflation, and capitalist exploitations.

By evoking, cultivating, and connecting various forms of consciousness in the virtual realms, Dwellers Between the Waters invites the ‘dwellers’ who inhabit in and among realities to share their stories and experiences, which then feed back to the so-called reality as evolving strings materializing across both physical and virtual domains to (hopefully) bring novel perspectives for further changes. (Oxi Peng)

Kira Xonorika

WATER BODY
2023

WATER BODY by Kira Xonorika deals with the binaries between man and woman, East and West, human and animal, and human and non-human intelligence that have been created to solidify colonial power infrastructures in the West. However, we often see in nature and beyond how these boundaries are always blurry.

This collaborative work with AI connects ancestral and feminized aquatic mythologies through digital skins to reimagine future visions. Science fiction often explores the notion of the future through the lens of technoscientific development but more needs to be done to imagine the future of nature. 

Water is one of the most precious resources on Earth. While the water itself is not in danger as it is a naturally occurring resource on our planet, its access has been threatened due to pollution and climate change. By challenging binary thinking and drawing on life-centric systems, we can create a more inclusive and equitable world that values and protects our natural resources for future generations.

  
Mikey Woodbridge & Erza Shibboleth

ALGORITHMIC ZONES OF PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY
2023

ALGORITHMIC ZONES OF PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY by Mikey Woodbridge and Ezra Shibboleth is inspired by Yves Klein's 1959-1962 piece ZONE DE SENSIBILITÉ PICTURALE IMMATÉRIELLE and Mitchell Chan's 2017 piece DIGITAL ZONES OF IMMATERIAL PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY. In Klein's piece, he made paper certificates that represented empty zones imbued with immaterial artistic sensibility. Chan's piece translated this concept to blockchain by creating empty digital zones represented by ERC-20 tokens. Woodbridge and Shibboleth explore seven empty semantic zones in order to locate the possibility of sensitivity and sensibility in the latent space of a text-to-image diffusion model.

Pronouns are placeholders, bits of semantic information that stand in for something that has a name. A pronoun, rather than filling the space with the name, leaves it vacant except for the sensibility of the specified entity's existence. It removes the specific conditions of the named entity, leaving an unconditional zone. This series uses object pronouns, which represent the recipients of actions, as a means to probe empathy. The resulting pictorial outputs expose a potential zone of sensibility in the model's latent space, as well as the barriers to that potential.

When prompted with object pronouns, the images produced by the text-to-image diffusion model can be viewed as echoes originating from semantic zones where empathy is conceivable. The character of these echoes is shaped not by the semantic zone's empty interior but by the preconceptions that define its limits.

Diffusion models start with a noisy image and employ text input as a guide in a series of de-noising steps that approach a visually coherent image. This project implements Stable Diffusion v1.4 by Stability AI, the first publicly accessible Stable Diffusion model. As a somewhat primitive version, this model is less oriented toward what we want to see and more revealing of what we're actually asking for. ALGORITHMIC ZONES OF PICTORIAL SENSIBILITY presents noise nearing the possibility of empathy, deflected by the bias for form and the limitations of gender.

 
Ellie Pritts

AMARANTHINE REVERIES
2023

AMARANTHINE REVERIES by Ellie Pritts is a collection of AI-animated self-portrait videos exploring the boundaries between our physical bodies and the essence of who we are at our core. In Pritts’ practice using themselves as source material with AI, the artist finds that the AI feels much more empathetic to who they are than they do to themselves. The outputs are devoid of inner criticism and body dysmorphia, an unexpected but ultimately very liberating result.

 
Skye Nicolas

THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART
2023

In the series THE INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF AI-CREATED ART, Skye Nicolas examines ChatGPT’s declarative arguments on why AI-created art is intellectually superior, using the prompt: “Provide a digital minimalist conceptual art piece making the argument why AI-created art is intellectually superior and why it should be minted as an NFT.”

Nicolas extends his exploration of text rich triptychs (first exhibited at the Dallas Contemporary Art Museum in 2019) with META PROSE, a conceptual exercise in authorship using AI technology to produce meta-prose artworks from a flowing stream of online collective consciousness.

The schema of these AI-generated outputs consists of statements and minimalistic visual elements to compose standalone pieces that may be combined into a varied permutation of triptychs, typifying the artist's poetic distillation process of artistic and cognitive expression. Nicolas employs ChatGPT as a tool in the production process to allow for a limitless variety of outputs while utilizing the same prompt, tracing back to the iconic conceptual artworks of Sol LeWitt that give directions to construct the artwork. The artist continues to assert authorship of the work in perpetuity through the use of the prompt in the future to produce variants of it. This contemplation on authorship takes into account the novelty of our early contacts with pervasive AI technology during the nascent stages of its development.

Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
2023

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT by Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek reflects the dawn of a new era shaped by AI. Everything as we know it will change. We can no longer trust photography; the boundaries between fiction and reality have become fluid.

 
FAR

PHOTO FINISH
2023

PHOTO FINISH by Far explores the impact of technological progress, in concrete AI, and its influence on visual culture, featuring the horse as a central symbol. The artwork references its historical significance in the work of Eadweard Muybridge, where the horse served as an object for capturing the passage of time with photography and ultimately led to the development of motion pictures.

In situations where the naked eye cannot determine the winner of a race, a photo or video taken at the finish line is often used for a more accurate assessment. Race photography has continuously evolved since its inception, from single-exposure photo finishes to motion picture cameras and advanced digital cameras that use 1-dimensional array sensors to capture 1-pixel-wide sequential images of the finish line. PHOTO FINISH explores the introduction of new technological players in the visual production process, specifically focusing on AI-generated images of horse races.

The artwork is created in two steps: first, an AI model trained on actual race photos generates a speed photo of a horse race; second, the pixels of the AI-generated image are dismantled and reorganized, reinstilling a sense of velocity.

PHOTO FINISH is part of the exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI, presented by EXPANDED.ART and VerticalCrypto Art at EXPANDED.ART in Berlin, 18-23 April, 2023.

16 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future. 

In a world where technological advancements happen in the blink of an eye, AI is being pointed to in the cultural zeitgeist as an example of a potentially bleak and ominous future. It is worth considering, however, the ways computers and machine learning can push forward creativity, human connection and philosophical dialogues.

 
Chiara Passa

OBJECT ORIENTED STONES
2023

OBJECT ORIENTED STONES by Chiara Passa is a series of augmented reality abstract artworks and 3D sculptures created using AI. The artwork shows an alternative and visionary side of the stones, which appear animated by a sort of bizarre nature, transformed beyond their own functionality into something strange and unpredictable.

OBJECT ORIENTED STONES is part of the exhibition ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI, presented by EXPANDED.ART and VerticalCrypto Art at EXPANDED.ART in Berlin, 18-23 April, 2023.

16 artists explore the vast potential of future relationships between AI and creative expression to hypothesize on the not-so-distant future. 

In a world where technological advancements happen in the blink of an eye, AI is being pointed to in the cultural zeitgeist as an example of a potentially bleak and ominous future. It is worth considering, however, the ways computers and machine learning can push forward creativity, human connection and philosophical dialogues.

  
Olivera Đurđević (pAIperdoll)

LONGING
2023

LONGING by Olivera Đurđević seeks to capture the visual essence of longing and the search for solace in the face of loss. Đurđević, inspired by the passing of her late father, uses AI to process her grief. The landscapes often feature small, distant figures and lost animals enveloped in a haze, symbolizing the arduous process of letting go and the emotional turmoil that arises from losing a loved one. 

Đurđević also showcases AI’s ability in reimagining the 19th-century photographic printing process known as gum bichromate. Each piece in this collection was crafted using solely AI algorithms, paying homage to the delicate balance of beauty and nostalgia that characterized the original process. 

By revisiting this antiquated technique through a modern lens, LONGING invites viewers to reflect on the beauty and pain of memories, the passage of time, and the transformative nature of art.

Veronica Kuri (Eclectika)

CAN AI SAVE NATURE?
2023

In Veronica Kuri’s series CAN AI SAVE NATURE?, the artist asks the viewer to consider whether AI and all of its advancements can potentially save nature, as humans are actively destroying it. While these days, humanity lacks empathy on a global scale, can AI potentially change the course of our future to align with saving the planet Earth–and all of the nature with which we coexist?

Lars Nagler

EMP LAB
2023

EMP LAB by Lars Nagler is a glimpse into a large science complex that represents the big brain of AI. At least, that's how Nagler imagines it. Many small working groups are working multidisciplinary to try to answer the question of the exhibition: What are the promises of AI? The AI draws from a great wealth of knowledge and imagines itself. There are youth work groups that playfully work on synthetic-organic interfaces. There are holodeck levels on which final haptic tests are carried out. There are sleep labs where mind expansion and awareness reign supreme. For Nagler, working with AI is an alchemical process. Diverse and nuanced ingredients result in the expected or even more surprising results and artworks. It is supremely satisfying to take up a narration of your own.

EMP LAB accompanies and documents all departments of a laboratory, in which the AI itself elicits the vacant question. Fundamental patterns and structures are laid out, meaning is sought, historical marvels are declared as standards and new neurotransmitters are developed. Imagination and deep knowledge have always led to soulfulness and empathic efficacy.

Nagler was influenced by, among others, Andrei Tarkovsky's SOLARIS, Thomas Mann's ZAUBERBERG, Chris Marker's LA JETÉE, and Ken Russell's ALTERED STATES.

  
Ziyang Wu

ALGORITHMIC EMPATHY. THE PROMISES OF AI
18 - 23 APRIL 2023
OPENING: 18 APRIL | 6-9 PM CET

EXPANDED.ART
Friedrichstraße 67, 10117 Berlin
Monday - Saturday: 11 AM - 6 PM CET

VerticalCrypto Art collaborates with EXPANDED.ART, who turns Web3 inside out and expands the notion of a gallery and an online marketplace by being both.

The focus is on the history of digital art and on supporting female and non-binary artists. Art is made collectible for everyone by offering NFTs and time-limited and limited editions. As a gallery, EXPANDED.ART, represents yesterday's pioneers and today's avant-garde.