The Creative AI Lab is undertaking a year-long investigation into the back-end interfaces or ‘internal tooling’ that artists use to create/experiment with, and interrogate, existing machine learning software (or their own). The aim of this open call is to document a collection of artist interfaces and to inquire about how artists understand their work with machine learning.
⮕ The Call for Case Studies
As artists turn to machine learning as a medium, labeling datasets, building and optimising models, these processes become central conceptual components to the work itself. Interfaces created to manipulate these backend environments have therefore become critical for artistic production and provide insights into ML and more generally AI. One might say that, in fact, it is here (in the interface), that artistic meaning-making is happening when using ML as a medium, tool, or collaborator.
We are looking for submissions that demonstrate how you work with ML. For example, have you customised your own ML interface? Do you tinker with off-the-shelf models? Do you create a feedback loop that allows you to adjust parameters? Or more generally, are the technical aspect of working with ML important to your work?
If you answered ‘yes’ to these questions, we would be grateful if you would respond to our short survey form. Answers will contribute to the ongoing research of the Creative AI Lab and will create material presented in future publications, talks and play a role in Ph.D. research at the Creative AI Lab.
We plan to publish an academic paper as well as other not-yet-finalised publications based on this call, starting with a forthcoming paper presented at Art Machines / 2 in Hong Kong (June 2021). In the paper, we aim to analyse the production of artworks made using ML: specifically, we will look at their back-end interfaces/’internal tooling’/control centers that manipulate the calculations of ML. Among others, we will investigate the following questions: How is ML in its materiality entangled in the making of meaning from the artist’s point of view? Could the making of meaning based on calculations of machine learning be read as a new cultural technique?
⮕ What you need to submit
✓ Your name, email, links to your website or social media (to learn more about your practice).
✓ Submissions may vary depending on your practice and your work’s back-end environment. As a guideline, though, we would like to receive screenshots/recordings of one or more of the back-end working environments that you are using. Please annotate these screenshots directly or in a separate paragraph. Additionally, it would be splendid if you could specify details like which software you are using and whether you have employed open-source models (i.e. Runway ML, etc.).
✓ Finally, provide a description of the work/s this interface is producing by providing a link and/or sharing a short paragraph.
