Latent Assemblies | 29 November

Symposium on the Interplay of Artistic Making and AI

Reassemble

FIBER Festival x Artificial Times

FRI NOV 29, 14:00 - 19:00 | Sandberg Institute

The symposium Latent Assemblies provides a space for knowledge exchange, with the goal of learning about different strategies and making processes adopted by artists and designers working with machine learning technology and AI in general, in relation to sonic and audiovisual productions.

There is an abundance of both utopian and critical theoretical conversations about the impact of AI – and rightfully all important. Within the often overwhelming array, this symposium aims to disclose the actual making processes of artists using AI, the use of different systems and models, and herein, how artistic creators develop their work through assemblies of existing services and sometimes self-developed systems.

TICKETS

Highlighting a variety of making processes and pressing questions concerning the future of synthetic-assisted creativity. Along with the illumination of these processes, critical and socio-cultural questions will be addressed, which are often inseparable from working with AI.

SYMPOSIUM FRI NOV 29
Friday November 29, 14:00 – 19:00
Sandberg Institute, Rietveld Academy Amsterdam
• Tickets: € 9,50
• Student Ticket: € 7,00
Free tickets for all Sandberg & Rietveld Academy students and tutors

WORKSHOP THU 28 + SAT 30 NOV
See information below

Topics

Now that AI has become widely accessible and applicable to anyone with a modern computer and fast Internet connection, there is an abundance of new AI-co-created music, scripts and video clips. Services like ChatGTP, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DALL·E have been used to create a common aesthetic which has been dominating the internet for the last year.

Meanwhile, we have seen well-known artists making use of these platforms, or self-trained systemes, to make digital copies of themselves or other artistic sources. While being immersed in this state of AI, the panel will take a moment to zoom in and ask a series of fundamental questions about the potential next frontier of developments.

In what ways does the art of making sound, visuals and storytelling fundamentally change when using AI, promoting and AI architecture-design? What opportunities are there for worldbuilding and when AI agents interact? Simultaneously we will not shy away from addressing critical questions about the flipside of the AI hype.

Sharing thoughts and potential strategies for issues around the future of ownership, copyright and income for artists in a reality in which styles and aesthetics seem up for grabs by big tech-companies. Are there communal ways to organise and build a future AI-influenced practice? And addressing the elephant in the room: how do we as artists relate ourselves to the environmental impact?

Participating Speakers

Portrait XO
Artist Talk

As researcher, artist and awarded musician, Berlin-based Portrait XO has integrated machine learning and data-driven technologies into the core of her audiovisual practice. She has been internationally recognized for her work in sonic innovation with AI audio. At the symposium Portrait XO will share with us her journey of early AI music research and deconstructs how she sonifies data using new data sonification tools.

Agustina Woodgate
Artist Talk

Reinterpreting traditional cartographic methods through the lens of contemporary digital practices and AI, Agustina Woodgate challenges the viewer’s understanding of maps and their role in shaping our perception of the world. At the core of the installation ‘The New Times Atlas of The World’ (2023) is a 500-page atlas of the world, transformed as the artist sands away its established geographic markers, political and colonial constraints by using predictive technologies.

u2p050
Artist Talk & Panel

u2p050 is a pluridisciplinary human-machine entity creating art, philosophy, music and technology. Through its creations, the studio attempts to construct thought experiments that open up ways of questioning our contemporary world, and in particular its increasing digitalisation. They are experimenting with video game engines, artificial intelligence, three-dimensional modeling, stereoscopic sound and interactive software.

Farzaneh Nouri
Artist Talk & Panel

Investigating complex systems, natural algorithms, and human-machine interaction, the artist and musician Farzaneh Nouri focuses on artificial intelligence methods in the framework of live electroacoustic music improvisation. She composes for live performances, interactive installations, films, VR, and multi-sensory experiences. At the symposium Latent Assemblies she will share her approach to various machine learning systems, and working with AI in general.

LOREM
Artist Talk

LOREM works across sound and media, exploring states of consciousness and emotional datasets through visceral audio-visual experiences. He has worked and performed with machine learning tools for aesthetic purposes since 2016. He is the director of Krisis Publishing, an editorial platform dedicated to exploring the politics of representation. At the symposium, he will take us inside the creation process of his projects.

Salim Bayri
Artist Talk

Salim is a moroccan born visual artist and polyglot whose practice spans sculpture, performance, drawing, coding, tech, and the virtual realm. During the symposium, Salim will talk about his project Hadra Collider; an algorithm machine and conceptual device referring to the Large Hadron Collider, which Bayri fantastically re-imagines as a particle accelerator inside his throat. Shifting from hadron to hadra, the piece moves in the poetic in-betweens of Arabic and Indo-European linguistics.

Moderator

Abdo Hassen

Abdelrahman Hassan is a creative technologist, AI strategist, Digital Anthropologist, and Poet based in Amsterdam. He lives at the intersection of software, critical theory, data, and poetry. As a researcher, he has led many initiatives across industry, academia, culture, and civil society to help build power-sensitive critical literacy of technological progress.

As an organizer and facilitator, Abdo is part of the AI x Design Community, participated in critical events such as Public Spaces and worked at IKEA’s Responsible AI department. In his personal research, he focuses on Decolonial Computing and mitigating AI harm. Language and poetry play an important role in his work, through which he highlights and visualizes extractivist technologies and colonial tendencies.

Workshop LOREM: BETWEEN THE LINES

Exploring Intertextuality and Storytelling through Machine Learning

WORKSHOP OVERVIEW
THURDAY 28 NOV + SATURDAY 30 NOV

In this workshop BETWEEN THE LINES, the artist LOREM will invite participants to explore the concept of intertextuality, framing Machine Learning (ML) as a tool for storytelling. Participants will explore embedding techniques and ways to use large language models (LLMs) to interact with and transform textual archives, creating new fictional or screenplay content. Through critical perspectives and hands-on experimentation, the workshop will challenge traditional ideas of co-creation with AI, framing ML as a method to access and interpret transpersonal layers of data from various authors and contexts, offering new ways to work with archival material.

STRUCTURE & GOALS

Participants will dive into hands-on techniques, starting with embedding processes to expand on archival and narrative-based datasets. This approach enables writers, screenwriters, and other creators to build new narratives by “teaching” the machine about unique concepts and unfamiliar words. Through both theoretical and practical exploration, the workshop will present ML as a toolkit for connecting knowledge systems rather than a collaborator that redefines creativity.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP LEAD

LOREM is an evolving identity in the field of sound and media, working across consciousness exploration and emotional datasets to create visceral audiovisual experiences. With a background in Machine Learning for the arts, LOREM’s work merges sound, image, and digital narrative. Collaborators have included artists and researchers like Danny Elfman, Blixa Bargeld, and Mario Klingemann. LOREM’s work has been featured internationally at institutions and festivals such as Ars Electronica, Biennale di Venezia, FIBER Festival, KW Berlin, NXT Museum Amsterdam, and the Montreal Elektra BIAN.

DATES & INFOMATION

Thursday 28 | Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam) | 12:00 -18:00
Saturday 30 | Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam) | 10:00 – 18:00

Prices:

Fee for Professional Participants (regular): € 80 (including coffee, tea, snacks)
Fee for Student Participants: € 50 (including coffee, thea, snacks)
Commercial Studios*: € 200 (including coffee, tea, snacks)
Discount for Rietveld Academy students: € 40 (including coffee, tea, snacks)
Free for Sandberg Instituut students: € 0 (get a free ticket online) (including coffee, tea, snacks)

FIBER works from an inclusivity approach to our pricing for participation in events and workshops. If you would like to participate, but the cost is too high, please indicate tis in the form. We are aware that working and studying in culture, and living in Amsterdam, are hugely expensive. Don’t feel burdened to ask. At the same time, we would like to appeal to anyone who can afford the existing prizes, to pay them, as this will also make it possible for others to participate.

Sign up if you are interested and you will receive more detailed information. We will select a diverse and well-attuned group from all submissions.

APPLY HERE