Enlarging the Computational Spectrum

The lecture deals with a crucial event of the 20th century – the discovery and subsequent use of atomic power for military and then civil use - and the spaces related to it. At the same time, it addresses two issues that are indeed timely: the first is the overwhelming role of technology in our lives and the fact that we are not able anymore to fully control it (the “promethean gap” philosopher Guenther Anders referred to); the second is the fact that the extreme nature of the Manhattan Project and its legacy introduced in scientific thought and practice a completely new paradigm, one of non-graduality.

We can recognize this non-graduality—this “unthinkability”, as intended by Herman Kahn in his book “Thinking about the Unthinkable”(1962) —also in many events that increasingly affected our lives since the beginning of this millennium: the epochal effects of climate change, the economic crisis of 2008, the combined effects of earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima in 2011, the Covid-19 pandemic that hit us globally, the overwhelming evolution of artificial intelligence. Events that exceed what we consider plausible, out of scale both in psychological and cultural terms.

The research presented in the frame of the lecture engages with spaces where the non-graduality paradigm took shape and first manifested. It does so through the exploration of memories and landscapes related to the atomic bomb and its legacy. Following the path opened by Simon Schama with his groundbreaking work “Landscape and Memory” (1995), individual and collective memories, tangible landscapes and landscapes of the mind are intertwined in a seamless narrative.

Ludovico Centis is an architect, founder of the office The Empire and co-founder and editor of San Rocco magazine. He has been a partner at the architectural office Salottobuono from 2007 to 2012. Centis holds a PhD in urbanism (Università Iuav di Venezia) and is currently assistant professor in urbanism at the University of Trieste. His research focuses on the ways in which individuals and institutions, as well as desires and power, shape cities and landscapes. Recent monographs and edited volumes include Reyner Banham: A set of actual tracks (2024), The Lake of Venice. A scenario for Venice and its lagoon (2022, with Lorenzo Fabian) and A parallel of ruins and landscapes (2019).

This lecture will be held in Room G.12, 22 Gordon Street, first come, first seated.

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This lecture is available in person and online 13:00 -15:00 BST. 

In Person: Room 505, 25 Gordon Street - no need to book in advance 

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Agential Computing

This lecture treats the shift from algorithmic composition to synthetic media as a watershed moment in computational aesthetics, transforming notions of generativity that computation puts forth. By ingesting a vast corpus of source material, generative deep learning models are capable of encoding multi-modal data into a shared embedding space, producing synthetic outputs which cannot be decomposed into their constituent parts. These models call into question the relation between conception and production in myriad creative practices spanning musical composition to visual art. Moreover, artificial intelligence as a research program poses deeper questions regarding the very nature of aesthetic categories and their constitution. 

These developments will be explored by analysing the notion of aesthesis in machine learning—a study of how computation constructs the worlds it navigates—seen through the lens of a family of models known as ‘latent diffusion’. The stakes for our account of computation and its epistemic limits will be discussed by elaborating a critique of AI, drawing on the work of Wilfrid Sellars. Throughout, AA Cavia will endorse a topological view of computation, which will inform the neural turn in computer science, characterised as a shift from the notion of a stored program to that of a cognitive model.

Lastly, AA Cavia will consider notions of autonomy and agency within the regime of computation, drawing a distinction between the axiomatic precepts of rule-following automata and situated learning agents. In this way, we can begin to move our focus from the nomos (laws) to the topos (sites) of computation, to consider what agential affordances are at play when designing with and for non-human actors.

AA Cavia is a computer scientist and researcher based in Berlin. His studio practice is centered on speculative software, engaging with machine learning, algorithms, protocols, encodings, and other software artefacts. He has lectured and exhibited internationally, at institutions such as Jan van Eyck Academie, ZKM, and The New Centre for Research. His writings have been published by HKW, Urbanomic, Routledge, and the Glass Bead Journal, amongst others. He is the author of one book, Logiciel: Six Seminars on Computational Reason (&&&, 2022). He has over a decade of experience building platforms for the arts and is currently lead machine learning engineer at Artsy.

This lecture is available in person and online 11:00 -13:00 BST. 

In Person: Room 107, 25 Gordon Square - no need to book in advance 

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Cybernetics, Computing and Creative Collaboration in 1970

This lecture is an exploration of cybernetics, interactivity and computational art in Britain in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The use of a computer to create art was a radical concept at this time, raising questions about creative behaviour and process, and challenging the notion of what art was or could be. Based on Catherine's latest book Creative Simulations: George Mallen and the Early Computer Arts Society (Springer: 2024), learn about George Mallen, a pioneer of creative computing systems since 1962 and his early work with cybernetician Gordon Pask, the ground-breaking exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity, the founding of the Computer Arts Society and Ecogame, the Society’s collaborative project of 1970. 

Able to modify its reactions according to the behaviour of the participants, Ecogame was a simulation model of an economic system, dealt with opportune issues of ecology and environment, and was the first multi-player, digitally driven, interactive gaming system in the UK. It exemplified the Society’s belief in a positive ‘human machine interrelationship’ made visible through art. Ecogame was part of that community’s conversation around early machine learning in art and the challenges that a highly computerised society could face in the future. 

The creators of Ecogame, by embracing computing, discovered that art could have a greatly amplified role, one that was integrated with societal concerns. Ecogame was focused on a positive vision of the future, an understanding, posited on cybernetics, of a future that could be participatory via digital means, and therefore more democratised. This use of early interactive systems foreshadowed the AI digital art revolution we see today.

Catherine Mason is a researcher and writer who has been focused on recovering the lost history of computer and digital art since 2002. Her book A Computer in the Art Room: The Origins of British Computer Arts 1950-1980 (2008, ebook 2021) was the first published comprehensive account of the history of computer art in Britain. It records 60 British pioneers of this genre, many of whom had never had their story in print before. This was followed by the co-edited White Heat Cold Logic: British Computer Art 1960-1980 (MIT Press: 2009). She is on the board of the Computer Arts Society.