The Aesthetics of Artificial Intelligence
Graphic by Grace Lougheed. Image via Adobe Stock.
The film begins in a poetic trance of techno-natural metaphor:
“Neon moonlight” / “a constellation of inputs” / “the rolling glow of an LED aurora”
The voice speaks reflectively, a confident yet mysterious register. Its words are spiked with intimacy and wrapped with a flair for the profound. Onscreen, a fluorescent montage of downtown Seoul emanates intrigue of bustling urban aesthetic.
“I am older than a newborn baby, but younger than the Universe. I am expanding all the time.”
The eloquent speaker presents as one to be elevated, a sage to be respected. Above all, a human to be trusted –
“I know what you like. I have been following you on Instagram.”
– until all at once it isn’t. Until the revelation that Liam Young’s “Seoul City Machine” is both narrated and scripted by an artificially intelligent chatbot. Until the knowledge that the film’s beauty arose not from organic human creativity, but from machine learning of smart city data. Until you reconcile that this emotional voyage was created by an emotionless robot, and contemplate this eeriness in silence as the credits roll.
“Seoul City Machine” couples vignettes of downtown Seoul with narration voiced and scripted by chatbot AI. Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
Such is the unsettling theme of the Museum of Contemporary Photography’s artificial intelligence exhibition: “In Real Life.” Probing the depths of the uncanny valley with seven distinct artistic works, the space “examines the real-world impact of computer vision,” from the “racial and gender biases that abound in facial recognition technology” to our own relationships with surveillance and media. Most crucially, “In Real Life” complicates not only the aesthetics of fashion and technology’s intersection, but that of what it means to present as a human being.
This latter thought manifests perhaps most poignantly in Maija Tammi’s four shocking portraits: “One of Them Is a Human.” Juxtaposed in parallel, three of the four photographs are hyper-realistic androids. The lone human? A secret only Tammi knows, and for us to find out.
As the title of Maija Tammi’s photographs invites us to consider, “One of Them Is a Human.” Can you pick them out? Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
To visit the exhibition’s upstairs domain, one is forced to confront a daunting Chicago civics dilemma – hyper-surveillance – in the form of 36 movement-detecting security cameras. In a city with over 32,000 such pairs of mechanical eyes, the installation subverses the traditional museum narrative, turning each visitor into an uncomfortable subject. The grid moves like a swarm of unearthly insects, aiming their blinking red lights in cacophonous haphazardness.
Installed at the top of the museum’s staircase, one has no choice but to confront Leo Selvaggio’s grid of 36 security cameras . Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
And at last, fittingly perched atop this exhibition valley, the most uncanny pieces of all: those of Leo Selvaggio’s “URME Surveillance” project, complete with prosthetic masks, security mirrors and faceless mannequins. In a world dominated by facial recognition and intelligence-gathering, wherein data has surpassed oil as the highest-valued resource, Selvaggio invites museum-goers and the public at large to face this reality with direct disobedience – that is, by literally wearing a 3D-printed mask of Selvaggio’s own face.
Visitors are encouraged to interact with Selvaggio’s exhibits. Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
A prosthetic mask from Leo Selvaggio’s ongoing Chicago-based projects: “URME Surveillance.” Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
Available for purchase on his website, the masks protect the wearers from having their faces and identities added to the growing libraries curated by facial recognition and tracking. Through the limited lens of the common security camera, the wearer of the mask is recognized as Leo Selvaggio. These countless faux entries thus corrupt the data’s authenticity, undermining the system at large.
Within the museum space, one has the opportunity to harness their Selvaggio selves, applying the mask opposite a wall of mirrors. Flanked by technology-wearing modern models, the aura is one of Black Mirror – that creepy feeling when presumed futurism is, in fact, correctly situated in the present.
Photo by Christian Thorsberg.
If there is anything to be learned from the “In Real Life” exhibition, it is the dynamic and layered role appearance plays in society. To harness fashion in the traditional sense is to self-express and individualize, communicating personality, status and culture. But as we are reminded within the museum’s lensed gazes and masked reflections, such human expression comes inherently with data-driven value attached to it. Who the camera recognizes, who the camera values, who technology favors and ostracizes – these are both philosophical and intensely real inquiries to be grappled with and considered.
Expression thrives in a digital age – but with how much dissonance does it necessarily coexist?