“The journalist finds himself in the woods.” Marc Da Costa, a digital artist with a Ph.D. The anthropology doctor was speaking at the controls of an artificial intelligence-based video installation at the Onassis Foundation’s ONX Studios, a high-tech media lab in the Olympic Tower in midtown Manhattan. He was talking to a computer running this installation. About me.
“You’ll see a ton of food delivery bikes,” Da Costa continued, unfolding a crazy story that AI will soon render on screen. “The heavens open and a friendly being from the galaxy comes down carrying a scepter. Frank and the galactic being meet a delivery man and share a meal under a forest canopy. …
A moment later, a group of food delivery bikes actually appeared on three giant video screens surrounding us. The entire scene is rendered in a charming, nostalgic style reminiscent of travel posters from 100 years ago. Attached to the handlebars of each bike was a wicker basket overflowing with bounty. Although the forest was entirely computer generated, it looked green and inviting. The story is narrated in sweet tones by a seemingly Oxbridge-educated fembot.
Da Costa was previewing “The Golden Key,” one of four digital video installations, at the Black Box Theater in the Fisher Building at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Collectively known as Techne, the installation is rounding out the latest edition of BAM’s Next Wave Festival, delivering the innovative products the organization felt it needed after cutting back on programming and laying off 13% of its staff in 2023.
Techne, which runs until January 19th, is a festival within a festival. It is curated and funded by Onassis ONX, the digital culture initiative of the Onassis Foundation, which is building studios and providing free multi-million dollar facilities to dozens of artists.
The series opened Saturday with “The Vivid Unknown,” an AI-based retelling by John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio of Reggio’s 1982 film “Koyaanisqatsi.” Next up is ‘The Golden Key’, named after a story by the Brothers Grimm, a short story that encouraged readers to invent their own endings over 200 years ago. Next, ‘Voices’ depicts Athens-based video artist Margarita Athanasiou’s foray into the spiritual world, and ‘Secret’, a collection of stories of black women’s achievements by Brooklyn-based artist Stephanie Dinkins. ‘Secret Garden’ continues. With the exception of “Voices,” each interacts by sensing audience reactions or, in the case of “The Golden Key,” receiving direct input through a computer kiosk on the floor of the theater space.
The best of these use AI to criticize technology. As Fitzgerald put it, “a machine out of control.” Like “Koyaanisqatsi” (the title is a Hopi word that roughly translates to “life out of balance”), “The Vivid Unknown” is a collection of mostly wordless sounds and images that signify humanity’s divorce from nature. However, unlike the original film, the AI version does not include actual photography and music by Philip Glass. Generated by software trained on Reggio’s films and Glass’s scores.
Fitzgerald first saw “Koyaniscotch” in 2001 while studying anthropology at Brown University. He quickly switched to studying film and soon began projecting “Koyaanisqatsi” on the ceiling of his room at home. “My intention was to go into that experience.” He said as we sat in ONX. “It was one of the first moments I thought about immersive storytelling.”
Then, a few years ago, he was introduced to Reggio, then in his 80s and living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but no longer traveling. “Who goes to Santa Fe to have coffee with someone?” Fitzgerald said. “But I did it on a whim.”
“The Vivid Unknown” and Techne’s other installations came to BAM through the organization’s former president, Karen Brooks Hopkins, who retired in 2015. Now the director of the U.S. branch of the Onassis Foundation, she was the person ONX turned to when he was looking for her. We were looking for a large public space to display the work created in our lab.
“Most of the time, I’ve seen these immersive things in big glasses,” Hopkins said in a phone interview, recalling the immersive light show in Van Gogh’s work, for example. “What we’re trying to do here is apply it across the board to the performing arts.” If anything, it could play a role in venturing into Brooklyn in search of today’s black-clad hipsters. New and experimental 40 years ago.
Like many arts organizations, BAM is still recovering from the pandemic and the resulting decline in attendance and fundraising. It also suffered from the departure of top management. President Gina Duncan took over in 2022, and Artistic Director Amy Casello took on her current position just six months ago after taking on an interim role at the theater’s predecessor. Producer David Binder has left the company after four years with the company.
With 11 events this season, Next Wave appears to be bouncing back from its worst in 2023, when it only presented eight productions, but this is still far lower than the 31 productions staged in 2017. “We try not to calculate,” Casello joked. When we met at a Brooklyn cafe.
Before he left, Binder made digital media a priority for BAM. Cassello followed his lead, but she is unlikely to become champion. “I still don’t understand how it works,” she said of the ‘golden key.’ “But thank you for participating, the diversity of the results is truly amazing.” And what are her views on AI in general? “I would put myself in the resistant category, but I trust people who are smarter than me.”
On the surface, the “Golden Key” is a digital toy that can be interacted with to generate wild threads. But at a deeper level, as Da Costa said in his preview of the Olympic Tower, it offers “an encounter with the future, where machines tell us stories.” In this case, it’s a fake folktale.
Da Costa and his co-creator, Matthew Niederhauser, fed a large index of folklore into an AI and programmed it to simulate the kinds of stories that tell us who we are and where we came from across centuries of widely separated civilizations. at. “Myths are our common foundation for understanding the world.” Da Costa spoke when his system surrounded us with fascinating yet empty manipulations. But what if someone sets up an autonomous AI system that operates on an industrial scale to fabricate stories that are meaningless or, worse, false?
Much has been written about the chaos that social media has caused. In part, this is because the overriding goal of social media companies is to maximize engagement and, therefore, revenue. “It doesn’t take much to think about who will control these tools,” Da Costa said. “What are the economic and political interests behind it?”
Niederhauser, who was listening via video call, said, “Now is not the time for artists to step away from technology. This is a very important time to get involved and try to think critically about how it works.”
Techne (BAM, provided by Onassis) and under the radar)
Through January 19 at BAM Fisher, 321 Ashland Place, Brooklyn; bam.org/new-media/2024/techne. “The Vivid Unknown” (January 4-5 and 7); “The Golden Key” (January 8-11); “Voices” (January 12 and 14-15); “Secret Garden” (January 16-19).
January 7, 7:30 PM: Q. and A after a special screening of “Koyaanisqatsi” at BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn). John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio.
