Naturally Artificial Intelligence Art Association
Tina KULT, Agnes VARNAI. Creative Strategies in Retraining Laziness
In “Creative Strategies in Retraining Laziness”, we discuss the artistic approaches behind the making of ‘Retraining Laziness’, a series of short films that address the pressures of a society focused on productivity. The short films feature a dialog between a human worker and a malfunctioning robot who neglects his duties to examine the ethics of work and the value of idleness. The talk offers an insight into our creative process, the integration of physical and digital elements and how we challenge conventional notions of work, creativity and the dynamic between human and machine.
T(n)C was founded in 2017 by Agnes Varnai and Tina Kult. They live and work in Vienna and experiment with a wide range of media, including virtual reality, 3D, installation, sculpture and film. By combining the different disciplines, they are researching immersive experiences to connect the digital and physical levels of realities. T(n)C’s aim is to expand the practices of collective storytelling.
Sabrina DURLING-JONES. MetaMorebi: Connecting with Nature Through Embodied Algorithmic Imaging Processes
This article re-conceives the word komorebi, a Japanese term to describe sunlight as it filters through the trees, to propose a framework for practicing metamorebi, or, an embodied approach to extended cognition that combines flânerie, photogrammetry and machine learning via NeRF training. The research explores a technique for re-imagining human relationships with nature and considers how our encounters with the environment might be enhanced through algorithmic artistic practices.
Sabrina Durling-Jones is a visual artist and instructor of creative and immersive technologies at Emory & Henry University. She is also a PhD candidate in Media Art and Creative Technologies, a joint doctoral program offered by Riseba University of Applied Sciences and Riga Technical University (Latvia). Her research proposes a phenomenology of Steinian non-actuality for algorithmic memory practices and experiments with
using emerging technologies to create embodied memory sensations. Her focus is on developing a framework for coping that can assist women living in displacement re-orient themselves in the present. Sabrina’s arts practice incorporates compiling personal image data sets to train machine learning models, using them to create works that represent memory, lived experience and connecting with nature through walking.
Martins VIZBULIS. See You
My creative work is based on technology and its impact on society in the context of observation. Observation serves as a research method, driven by both curiosity and the pursuit of informative knowledge. As technology advances, the possibilities for observation expand, leading to increased attention on sensitive information that may end up in the public domain. In response, I have deliberately chosen to avoid using direct visual and auditory technologies (such as image and sound).
In my observational practice, I use various sensors, processed by microcontrollers, with the data transmitted to servers where they are stored in databases. Subsequently, other tools retrieve these data from the database and employ them in real-time visualization systems. This method of observation offers greater opportunities to monitor environments where direct visual or auditory observation is not feasible due to privacy concerns. For example, when observing the flow of people in a particular location, a person is represented as a line. This line remains neutral, unaffected by variables such as skin color, gender, size, or age.
I draw inspiration from Michel Foucault’s Panopticon Theory, George Orwell’s novel “1984,” Thomas Mathiesen’s principle of the modern synopticon, and the “creative” activities of the Russian scientist and spy Lev Sergeyevich Termen.
Chantal T·PARIS, Gisèle TRUDEL. Sensing Changing Climates
The video presents Smartforests Canada research and two outdoor art installations (bois eau métal, 2021 and orée des bois, 2022) by Ælab and MÉDIANE, sensing situations with trees, techniques and machines, and peoples. Experiential data is activated with qualitative analysis software through the framework of the “5 Hows”, a research-creation that emerges by deflecting the “5 Whys” (Toyoda, c.1930). This novel approach brings collective intelligence into movement, cultivating agencies, highlighting patterns of senses and orientations in the data. An alternative is offered to anxiety, denial, and feelings of powerlessness and guilt often associated with climate change (Stoknes and Randers, 2015).
A dynamic of operations —sylvan, scientific, artistic, textual, and philosophical—, is informed by the concepts of the transindividual (Simondon, [1964] 2005) and the more than qualitative (Paris, 2021-). In movement, symbiotic sciences and collective intelligences are actualized with creative expression.
Chantal T·Paris holds an MA in Études des arts (UQAM). She is currently a doctoral student in Études et pratiques des arts at UQAM. Her research-creation project explores dynamic scales and agencies of changing climates through the more-than-human micro collective system of tango dance, with sensing technologies and processes (contextuelle.ca). She is a student member of MÉDIANE and HEXAGRAM.
Gisèle Trudel, Ph. D., is an artist (aelab.com) and full professor at École des arts visuels et médiatiques, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She pilots MÉDIANE, the Canada Research Chair in Arts, Ecotechnologies of Practice and Climate Change mediane.uqam.ca.
Nima BAHREHMAND, August BLACK. The End of Us
Our project, “The End of Us,” explores what it means to be trapped in a system on a path to self-destruction, yet resisting its own collapse. This project serves as a memorial through an audio-visual installation and performances that symbolize degrowth and deceleration. Superworms slowly digesting styrofoam—a toxic byproduct of capitalist production—compel us to confront the unsettling realities of our time.
Inspired by Timothy Morton’s “Dark Ecology,” we challenge the division between nature and culture, emphasizing our deep interconnectedness with the non-human world. Through this lens, our project embraces the entanglement of all life forms, collaborating with human participants and superworms, who unknowingly act as creative agents. The superworms symbolize a potential future where humans and nature work together towards restoration.
“The End of Us” features both a mini-installation and a performance. The installation includes a terrarium with superworms consuming a styrofoam sculpture, amplified by microphones and cameras for an immersive experience. We plan to broadcast live audio and video on our website theendof.us. If possible, we will also perform live, using video and leading a chant to honor the superworms and reflect on our shared ecological fate.
Nima Bahrehmand is an interdisciplinary artist and scholar. His artistic research explores bodies, archives, and places that became suppressed, desertified, and subjugated by political, economic, and technological progress. He creates discursive ties around redefining and reworking data, unraveling how the databasing apparatuses service the dominance of the Global North to extract and manipulate the dignity of the South. Nima received his PhD in Emergent Technology and Media Art Practice from the University of Colorado Boulder and is an assistant professor of art at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.
August Black is a hybrid practitioner of art, design, and engineering that critically engages with techno-social systems in playful and evocative ways. With a focus on audio and transmission, he creates software, systems, and spaces through experimental research in the overlapping areas of new formats, network dynamics, and collaborative virtual architectures. He holds a PhD in Media, Arts, & Technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is currently an Assistant Professor at Colorado University Boulder in the department of Critical Media Practices.