paint to programming. Exploring the role of algorithms in SciArt creation. Dec 4, 2018
Channel: Artsci Salon
Date: 01/01/2019

A collaboration between ArtSci Salon and ArttheScience

better resolution/interactive at http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/video-archive/static/2018/12/1530-19707/mergedvideo.ogv

with Julia Krolik: Exploring algorithms in SciArt
Owen Fernley: Creative coding
Sarah Friend: Software as a medium
Bernardo Palacios Muñiz: Modern painting: A fluid mechanics perspective

Description.
What is an algorithm? 
There is no single definition of it. What we know is that it consists of a series of specifications of how to solve a class of problems. Computers run algorithms. AI contains algorithms that behave in a way which can be deemed intelligent in some way or other. The meaning of intelligent here is heavily under discussion
Algorithms help put order to big data. consumer data, environmental data, personal data. They are so ubiquitous that we often hear the term algorithmic governance, or “the infallible execution of automated order and control” Luciana Parisi.
Of course, the rise and popularity of algorithms has massive social, cultural and political implications. For instance, Meredith Broussard calls TechnoShauvinism the blind optimism toward technology. She argues that our collective enthusiasm for applying computer technology and “algorithms” to every aspect of life has resulted in a tremendous amount of poorly designed systems. This produces artificial Unintelligence, or artificial Stupidity. For Sufya Noble, Kate Crawford and Hito Steyerl algorithms reproduce and amplify, with deterministic cruelty, social norms, racist assumptions and oppressive behaviors, subjugating human labor and particular subsets of the human population in ways that are harsher than others. 
Of course, algorithms have been quickly adopted artists and designers. we may remember Christie’s sale of an algorithmically-generated work by Obvious. To this, curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev responded  “Artists who fetishize the medium, whatever that medium, they’re just generally not good artists,” the curator postulates. “A good artist, a real artist, will reflect on the implications of a technological revolution like AI and they’ll use it to show certain implications on our subjectivity.” For Ebru Yetiskin, it is imperative that we interrogate algorithmic governance. In fact, Algorithmic operations can be reappropriated in subversive and resistant ways for alternate purposes. (Ebru Yetiskin) She defines paratactic media the many ways to creatively intervene in the processes of algorithmic governance, by reappropriating the covert operations of algorithmic schemes in global capitalist culture in
order to stimulate alternative actions, knowledge and perception.
Then, What is the role and uses of programming and algorithms in artwork creation? Are they preliminary used as Medium to be well hidden to an audience more interested in the interface (or in the aesthetics) rather than in its algorithmic content?  or can algorithmic features be both medium and content, can they reveal the inner working, the politics, and the tactical/strategic uses of code and algorithmic complexity in a culture  increasingly withdrawn from their crucial implications? 
Thanks to a collaboration between Art theScience and ArtSci Salon, this event is meant to initiate a conversation to understand the many uses of algorithms in artistic and scientific research, from ways  to solve problems in fluid mechanics by drawing inspiration from the dripping technique of Jackson Pollock, to exploring and making visible the complex dynamics of the blockchain, to using algorithms to process and display data for science communication.