The Infinite Forecast – AI and Cultural Agency
This is a spinoff of a research program I ideated during my tenure as director of mudac (Museum of Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne) to explore collaborations between institutional and artificial intelligence, investigating novel epistemologies emerging from the encounter of human dreaming, synthetic culture and algorithmic rituals.
The Infinite Forecast is thought as an annual AI residency giving life to series of public actions (programs, workshops, online & digital contents, small scale installations, etc.) as part of the development process of integrating artificial intelligence as a collaborator in a museum’s practice. The research process intends to inform a variety of public offerings, culminating in the development of a specific project, each time targeting a particular aspect of an institution workings.
The research is motivated by a desire to embrace the intelligence of arithmetic models, not considered as outputs of automation but as alterities that contribute to the activities and practices of institutions of culture.
Artificial Intelligence is here not intended as tool or facilitator, but as an asset and an equal partner in a plural context of action, that critically reflects too on the future of collective identities, social interaction and ultimately hybrid realms of existence.
The Last Pencil by oio
The Last Pencil is a project developed by oio (co-founded by Simone Rebaudenggo & Matteo Loglio) exploring the evolution of drawing tools in the age of post-human intelligences. Just like pencils have been a fundamental tool of human creativity throughout history, The Last Pencil is a provocation depicting how artificial intelligences could radically change the way we design together, in a not too distant future.
The project is composed of a series of “pencils” that look like ordinary items at first glance, but they actually lack a signature graphite core. Engraved in each item there is a unique identifier, linking to a virtual pencil used by an artificial intelligence to draw in the digital space.
The Last Pencil is a pilot project I commissioned to oio and presented in DROPCITY during Milano Design Week to encourage a discussion around the role of humans and machines in future design processes.
Produced by mudac – Museum of Design and Applied Arts, Lausanne (Switzerland) during my term as its director.
Project developed by https://oio.studio/
Presented at https://www.dropcity.org/ – Milan Design Week, 2023