3 June 2022

JUNGE AKADEMIE launches AI Anarchies programme on artificial intelligence & ethics

Fellowship holders now selected; study group of the Autumn School now open for applications

The JUNGE AKADEMIE of the Akademie der Künste has selected six international artists and pairs of artists for the fellowship programme in the context of the project “AI Anarchies”. In six-month residencies in Berlin from July 2022, D’Andradeand Walla Capelobo, Sarah Ciston, Pedro Oliveira, Sara Culmann, SONDER (Peter Behrbohm and Anton Steenbock),andAarti Sunder will each continue their work on the subject of artificial intelligence and ethics. They will present their work in the “OPENHAUS” events of the ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics, which, as a partner of the programme, is providing accommodation and work space for the fellows, as well as at an exhibition at the Akademie der Künste in June 2023. The fellowships are each endowed with EUR 20,000. The fellows have been chosen by a jury composed of members of the Akademie der Künste and other experts.

At the same time, the JUNGE AKADEMIE is opening the study group of the interdisciplinary and international Autumn School of AI Anarchies to a limited group of public participants. The Autumn School (13.-20.10.2022) is curated by Maya Indira Ganesh and Nora N. Khan and brings together artists, scholars and activists. With insightful discussions among leading thinkers, performances, screenings and participatory workshops, it creates a space for new ideas, methods and knowledge networks in relation to AI and ethics. For seven days, the study group will engage in depth with the current debates on AI technologies and the social, cultural and political realities bringing them forth and shaping them. 20 places are available for artists and interested persons in the fields of the arts, culture, sciences and activism who are concerned with the subject of AI and/or AI technologies in the broadest sense. The selected participants will receive free access to all events as well as catering. Applications to take part can be submitted to aianarchies@adk.de until 11 July 2022. Further information on the concept of the Autumn School and terms & conditions for applications can be found here.

AI Anarchies is concerned with the ethical issues of AI technologies from an artistic and transdisciplinary perspective. Artists were discussing the ethical challenges of autonomous machines long before the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) came into use. Against the backdrop of the current boom in these technologies, the question of what “good” and “bad” AI are is more pertinent and complex than ever. The one-year programme comprises the residency programme with presentations and a concluding exhibition, as well as the 2022 Autumn School. It is being facilitated with artificial intelligence funding from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and monitored by an international curatorial advisory board.

The fellows’ projects:

Brazilian artists D’Andrade and Walla Capelobo are working on an online exhibition in the form of an aesthetics laboratory that unites artists from the African and global diaspora, essays, games and sonic fiction. They discuss the concept of the metaverse and enable a queer and decolonial outlook on AI. US poet and programmer Sarah Ciston develops community through creative critical programming using an intersectional feminist AI toolkit. Brazilian researcher and sound artist Pedro Oliveira explores how the body manifests itself in AI, drawing attention in his work to the links between AI use in migration and asylum processes and colonialist thinking. Russian artist and computer graphic designer Sara Culmann investigates digital marketplaces for AI-based digital workers and the associated ethical issues. The Berlin artist duo SONDER (Peter Behrbohm and Anton Steenbock) is taking part in the programme with their project totalearth, which explores ultra-capitalism and AI-driven utopian communism. Indian artist Aarti Sunder, whose artistic, historical and speculative research focuses on the infrastructure of AI, e.g. deep-sea cables carrying the world’s data, reveals the environmental and social consequences of the technology.

See press release of 17.01.2022