Events
Art, Tech & Culture

ONLINE: Neural Abstractions

Art, Tech & Culture
13 Apr, 2020

ONLINE: Neural Abstractions

with Tom White
Artist and Researcher
Victoria University of Wellington School of Design

An Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium, co-sponsored by Autolab and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR) in collaboration with Arts + Design Mondays at BAMPFA, and held in conjunction with the DH Faire.

This event will be online 6:30-8:00pm PST on April 13!

Join us at berkeley.zoom.us/j/582930408

How do machines perceive the world? Tom White has investigated enabling computer vision systems to draw their own visual abstractions through the creation of abstract ink print artworks. Though these artificial vision systems are trained only on real world images, when forced to express themselves abstractly they are able to create simpler forms that match their internal representations. These prints are also understood universally across most AI systems trained to recognise the same objects. It’s art by AI, for AI. By giving the algorithms the ability to express themselves directly, we are better able to see the world through the eyes of a machine.

About Tom White

Tom White has been working with AI and drawing systems for 25 years. His early work on drawing frameworks at MIT led to influential toolkits that are still popular today - such as Processing and OpenFrameworks. He is a senior lecturer in computational design at Victoria University of Wellington School of Design, where he teaching creative coding and researches creative applications of modern AI techniques. Tom’s artwork focuses on how machines see the world: neural networks use a specially constructed drawing system to produce abstract ink prints that reveal their own visual abstractions.

About the Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium

Founded by Prof. Ken Goldberg in 1997, the ATC lecture series is an internationally respected forum for creative ideas. Always free of charge and open to the public, the series is coordinated by the Berkeley Center for New Media and has presented over 200 leading artists, writers, and critical thinkers who question assumptions and push boundaries at the forefront of art, technology, and culture including: Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Sophie Calle, Bruno Latour, Maya Lin, Doug Aitken, Pierre Huyghe, Miranda July, Billy Kluver, David Byrne, Gary Hill, and Charles Ray.

Fall 2019 - Spring 2020 Series Theme: Robo-Exoticism

Monday Evenings, 6:30-8:00pm
Osher Theater, BAMPFA, Berkeley, CA
http://atc.berkeley.edu/

Presented with Berkeley Arts + Design as part of Arts + Design Mondays.

2019

09/09 Robots Are Creatures, Not Things
Madeline Gannon, Artist / Roboticist, Pittsburgh, PA
Co-sponsored by the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

09/23 The Copper in my Cooch and Other Technologies
Marisa Morán Jahn, Artist, Cambridge, MA and New York, NY
Co-sponsored by the Wiesenfeld Visiting Artist Lecture Series and the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation

10/21 Non-Human Art
Leonel Moura, Artist, Lisbon
Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish & Portuguese and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

11/4 Transience, Replication, and the Paradox of Social Robotics
Guy Hoffman, Robotics Researcher, Cornell University
Co-sponsored by the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

2020

01/27 Dancing with Robots: Expressivity in Natural and Artificial Systems
Amy LaViers, Robotics, Automation, and Dance (RAD) Lab
Co-sponsored by the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

02/24 In Search for My Robot: Emergent Media, Racialized Gender, and Creativity
Margaret Rhee, Assistant Professor, SUNY Buffalo; Visiting Scholar, NYU
Co-sponsored by the Department of Ethnic Studies and the Department of Comparative Literature

03/30 The Right to Be Creative
Margarita Kuleva, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Invisible Russia: Participatory Cultures, Their Practices and Values
Natalia Samutina, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow
Co-sponsored by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature and Department of the History of Art and the Arts Research Center

04/06 Artist Talk
William Pope.L, Artist
Presented by the Department of Art Practice

04/13 Teaching Machines to Draw
Tom White, New Zealand
Co-sponsored by Autolab and CITRIS People and Robots (CPAR)

For updated information, maps, please see:

http://atc.berkeley.edu/

Contact: info.bcnm [​at​] berkeley.edu, 510-495-3505

ATC Director: Ken Goldberg
BCNM Director: Abigail De Kosnik
Arts + Design Director: Shannon Jackson
BCNM Liaisons: Lara Wolfe, Sophia Hussain

ATC Highlight Video from F10-S11 Season (2 mins)
http://j.mp/atc-highlights-hd

ATC Audio-Video Archive on Brewster Kahle's Internet Archive:
http://tinyurl.com/atc-internet-archive

ATC on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/cal-atc

ATC on Twitter:
https://www.twitter.com/cal_atc

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