Research Catalogue

Conceived and co-organised by Emma Cocker, Alexander Damianisch, Cordula Daus and Lena Séraphin, this Society of Artistic Research Special Interest Group (SAR SIG) provides contexts for coming together via the exchange of language-based research. The intent is to support developments in the field of expanded language-based practices by inviting attention, time and space for enabling understanding of/and via these practices anew.

This research project examines antiracist ideas and approaches presented by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi and Ijeoma Oluo with the goal of finding out if they can be effectively applied into modern music production pedagogy. The study is conducted by using the approach of qualitative research, and reflects on the themes of representation, infrastructure, and power dynamics. Keywords: Antiracism, equity, justice, empowerment, representation, white fragility, white privilege, white supremacy, caste, race, CRT (critical race theory), music production, pedagogy

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As interaction with corporate artificial intelligence increasingly becomes a precondition for contemporary life, artists need to see beyond Generative AI (GenAI) technology as a discrete tool that makes generic products. Instead, they can imagine combinatorial approaches and conceptual frameworks for AI-enabled artworks. Through my practice-based research, the act of prompting multimodal GenAI models has been informed by comprehending an assemblage as a “framework of instruction” held together through poetic alliances, within which the output from one component feeds the process of another. Practical experiments explored an interrelation of body, text, and predictive technology, where an algorithmic prediction of human action conjured “biometric poetry” that was used to stimulate a language model. Working with archival film footage and digital puppets animated with motion-capture files gave rise to the idea of a camera’s field of view – with its bounded contents acting like a key – eliciting value from a language model in a novel form of story making. Potential erroneous inferences were perceived as a new form of chance operation and a characteristic of algorithmic remix as defined by Steve F. Anderson. This method has been further developed in a project that combines performance, waste material, object recognition, and a language model to explore how the manipulation of garbage can be rationalised by a machine to produce poetic texts as a commentary to action portrayed on a screen.

This paper delves into the dynamics and dramaturgical specifications of ANA, a theatrical installation engineered for co-creating narratives in a dialogic process with individual users. ANA embodies a collaborative storytelling environment that is used to communicate narrative and emotional information through multiple modalities, thereby bringing into focus an unexpectedly human essence in a human-machine interaction. Integrating GPT-4, emotion-recognition algorithms and a simulation of its own affective state, ANA engages users in a 10-minute interaction, fostering an immersive narrative exchange where the affective dimension of collaborative storytelling takes precedence. This paper explores the specific challenges of prompt design in this setting, focusing on the concept of emotional attuning, the feeling of being “in sync” with a machine throughout the interaction. Through an analytical lens encompassing cognitive science, philosophy of mind, and prompting techniques, the authors describe and reflect practices of employing multimodal sensorial data such as emotion recognition, and dramatic considerations, into the process of designing prompts. They also describe and reflect on their attempts to establish a form of meta-communication with the machine about the emotional aspects of the experience. By focusing on dramaturgical and improvisational strategies, this paper underscores the pivotal significance of emotional attunement and multimodal communication in fostering intimate technological engagement.

How useful can AI be at this present moment to generate assignments or instructions to teach and train people to live more playful, creative and ethical lives? In this artistic research, I try to put aside fears of a dystopian future in which runaway AI assumes control over humanity, and suspend them long enough to play with the idea of reversing the usual dynamic: what if AI were to instruct us, instead of us instructing AI? What kind of positive outcomes could emerge? I borrow from traditions of instruction art and avant-garde art, and I employ discursive practices that alternate between techno-enthusiastic and techno-skeptical. The AI tool ChatGPT and I hold conversations in which we explore the research question together, and in which I prompt ChatGPT to issue me instructions, then I describe the process and result of executing the instructions.