This doctoral project research investigates the relations between visual arts and artificial intelligence. A great weight is given to the concept of autonomy, as some kind of Holy Grail of cybernetics: the creation of entities that can fend off for themselves, like robots, autonomous cars or artificial software agents. As such, the project has the current working title of “Poetics of Autonomy”. But this concept is also dear to the arts. Much has been written and discussed on the potential for autonomy within the art object, and how much modernism and conceptual art has changed it.

My concern at this exhibition was to understand the tools AI offers for visual arts and issues they might convey. I also address the concept of autonomy from a perspective of the post-human, or the cyborg. What art can be done from an apocalyptic perspective? When no humans are left on the planet, could there be something left that continues to create art? And what kind of serendipity can be created – or at least simulated – with the current state of AI?
 

The exhibition was composed of five pieces and took place at the Hietsu Pavilion in Helsinki, from the 1^st to the 30^th July, 2021. Four pieces were included in the thesis, and are detailed here.

Click on the pieces for more information.

Back to front page