Conversations with Maverick Machines

This week I am prepping for a slew of upcoming events, which I’ll share below! But chiefly I wanted to share a link this week from an essay I wrote about the cyberneticist Gordon Pask.

It looks at the contributions of Gordon Pask to cybernetics, ideas that are often overlooked as we engage with “generative AI.” Pask was building neural nets in the 1950s, challenging definitions of black boxes, and later advancing specific — and useful — distinctions between “conversations” and “communication.” In a time when policy leaders are debating the sentience of word processors, these distinctions are crucial.

Pask seems like kin to me, as an artist working with and through technology. He was interested in building machines that didn’t simply make use of the logics of computation, but aimed to challenge the orthodoxy around what machines should be and do. Today, there are striking parallels to artists who are critical of the technologies they work with, and who aim to reframe them from the ground up.

My essay was published in the 2023 Adela Festival Digital Dish series, curated by Maks Valenčič. It appeared in Slovenian in Razpotja magazine, but an English version lives on at Ljudmila. It was built on a mountain of citations to Paul Pangaro, to whom I am grateful for guiding me to Pask’s work.

Upcoming In-Person Events!

Big Ideas in Art + Culture:
Eryk Salvaggio & Creative Misuse of AI

February 1, Guelph, Canada

My band, The Organizing Committee, will “perform” via an Audio-Video presentation after a talk on creative misuse of AI.

From the website:
Can you use AI to resist AI? Artist Eryk Salvaggio describes his engagement with AI from the perspective of “creative misuse,” pushing AI image and sound tools to move beyond often exploitative datasets to critique surveillance capitalism. How can artists use and critique technology at the same time? How do we make sense of the messy entanglements between culture, surveillance, and labor at the heart of AI? Salvaggio presents a talk that includes a short history of algorithmic resistance in the creative arts, culminating in an A/V performance from his critical-AI musical project, The Organizing Committee.

Big Ideas in Art + Culture Lecture Series is presented in partnership with Musagetes and Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener + Area.

Future of Arts, Culture & Technology Symposium (FACT 2024)

February 14 & 15, Melbourne, Australia

From the Website:
This year’s program is aimed at cultural leaders, policy makers, practitioners and those wanting to understand how we make the most of the possible future trajectories of technology in the arts.  In 2024 we have core themes of AI/automation and climate – and how the cultural sector will change over the next ten years as a result.

You will hear from artists and creators, senior cultural leaders, experienced creative technologists, academics and researchers from across the creative industries in a mix of presentation formats and panel discussions that explore the big issues in the field, and ways through the complexities of the next decade.

Music Current Festival

April 2 & 3 in Dublin, Ireland

Excited to be part of a panel on the future of music, as well as leading a small talk & workshop on AI for music. Chiefly I am thrilled that Dublin Sound Lab with be expanding the score for my 20-minute docu-manifesto, “Flowers Blooming Backward Into Noise,” which they will perform live alongside the films presentation as part of an evening of electro-acoustic performances. All events and talks are at the link below.

I will do my best to keep up with the newsletter over the next few weeks, but if I don’t see you here, I hope you’ll make your way to one of these events if it’s in your neighborhood!