2017 Leonardo Art, Science and Technology Lecture Series | Automatic Art, Automated Trading
Speaker: Arne De Boever
Time: 16.12.2017, 15:00 – 17:00
Language: English (with Chinese interpreting)
Venue: Chronus Art Center (No.18, No.50 Mo Gan Shan Rd, Shanghai)
Co-organized by Chronus Art Center, CAFA Center for Art and Technology, CAFA School of Experimental Art
In collaboration with Leonardo / ISAST
Free admission. To reserve a seat, please click here
About the lecture
In cultural representations of artificial intelligence and automated trading, the work of Jackson Pollock has emerged as an unlikely inspiration for the technological innovations that have drastically transformed the economy and, by extension, the world. This lecture will investigate further the connection between one of the most abstract and complex domains of finance, automated or “black box” trading, and the abstract expressionism (ab-ex) of what is sometimes characterized as Pollock’s “automatic art”. This will entail branching out into another abstract and complex field, namely artificial intelligence, whose cultural representations have in at least one case--Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina--involved Pollock as well. How is ab-ex mobilized in cultural representations of artificial intelligence and automated trading? How do the differences between those mobilizations render the various abstractions that those phenomena represent more concrete? If Pollock is a rather surprising ally for art’s engagement with artificial intelligence and automated trading, how have other contemporary artists as well as curators engaged with the technological innovations that have shaped today’s financial era and the debilitating market collapses that it has suffered (for example in 2008 and 2010)? In sum, how does art help us think about the technological infrastructure of today’s digitized economy in a time when art has all too often been reduced to a mere commodity or marker of wealth?
Jackson Pollock
Ex Machina, film by Alex Garland
About the Speaker
Arne De Boever teaches American Studies in the School of Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts, where he also directs the MA Aesthetics and Politics program. He is the author of States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel (2012) Narrative Care (2013), and Plastic Sovereignties (2016), and a co-editor of Gilbert Simondon (2012) and The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism (2013). He edits Parrhesia and the Critical Theory/Philosophy section of the Los Angeles Review of Books and is a member of the boundary 2 collective. His new book, Finance Fictions, is forthcoming with Fordham University Press.
➙ As an installment of the Leonardo Art, Sicence and Technology Lecture Series 2017, this lecture will be premiered at Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) on December 12th.
About the LEONARDO ART, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY LECTURE SERIES
Co-organized by Chronus Art Center(CAC), CAFA Center for Art and Technology (CAFAcat) and CAFA School of Experimental Art, in collaboration with Leonardo / ISAST, each installment of the series will feature renowned guest speakers from around the world on topics within the ever-expanding scope of Art/Science. CAC and its partner institutions will provide the venues for the events.
About Leonardo/ISAST
Leonardo/The International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology (Leonardo/ISAST) serves the global network of thinkers and practitioners working in the realms where art, science and the humanities connect. Since its beginnings nearly 50 years ago, Leonardo has fostered and supported the work of artists, scientists and scholars dedicated to breaking down the barriers that often separate fields of endeavor. Today, Leonardo/ISAST continues its leadership in cross-disciplinary creativity through the publication of content on evolving platforms (in collaboration with the MIT Press); the presentation of events, residencies and art/science projects; and other programs designed to address the interests of the art/science/humanities community.
More info at: www.leonardo.info
