More Than Meets AI
An exhibition investigating AI and its role in creativity, narrative, and artistic innovation
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This exhibition investigates AI and its role in creativity, narrative, and artistic innovation. We do so from a critically engaged perspective, one that both celebrates the new potentialities of AI for the arts and literature, while simultaneously considering some of the significant challenges AI poses for our culture and society.
We also contextualize contemporary AI art within a wider context of generative digital art and electronic literature that has a history stretching back to the beginnings of the digital computer.
The works in this exhibition engage with AI in ways that challenge conventional notions of how artists and writers might respond to this tectonic shift in technology, considering for example the complexity of new forms of writing that manifest as visual art. How might we “read” a parody articulated through generated images? How will AI impact the future of motion pictures? How can AI be used to produce works that critique dominant power structures? How can artworks address the biases and inequities that are baked into AI platforms and perhaps embedded within human language itself?
Here we explore the role of the cyborg author, the hybrid artist, whose work is neither solely the product of an individual human mind nor an artificial intelligence but a dance between the two within the vectors of a vast network of signification.
The More Than Meets AI exhibition, curated by Eamon O’Kane, Jill Miller, and Scott Rettberg with Alex Saum and Jhave Johnston, is taking place at multiple venues from late September to late October at venues including the Center for Digital Narrative, Kunstgarasjen, Joy Forum (KMD), Rom 61 (KMD), and USF Verftet (presented by the Bergen International Film Festival).
All the exhibition spaces have different artworks.
It is arranged and sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council project Extending Digital Narrative, the Center for Digital Narrative, the Peder Sather Center for Advanced Study, the faculties of Humanities and Art, Music, and Design at the University of Bergen, the University of California, Berkeley, and the host venues.
Production team: Ola Roth Johnsen, Jason Dunne, Colin Robinson, Andreas Hadsel Opsvik, Valeria Antezana Acosta and Drew Keller.
Special thanks to: Jane Sverdrupsen, Ingebjorg Aarhus Braeseth, Lina Harder, Haoyuan Tang, Jason Nelson, and Alinta Krauth.
Kunstgarasjen
Møllendalsveien 15. Exhibited September 20-October 20. Opening September 20, 19.00. Open Thursday 12.00-18.00, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 12.00-16.00. See more exhibition info at Kunstgarasjen.
The collection of videos shown in Kunstgarasjen features works that demonstrate some of the different ways that visual artists and language artists encounter and work with contemporary generative AI. “Women Reclaiming AI” by Birgitte Aga and Coral Manton (2021) documents a series of workshops and a resulting voice assistant application. It substitutes the often-subservient gendered role represented with one of empowered women exploring gender. “I Know What You’re Thinking” by Mario de la Ossa (2021) uses an early text-to-image generation platform to produce a reflection on political protests and how they are oppressed. “Posthuman Cinema” by Mark America, Will Luers, and Chad Mossholder (2023) is a ten-part film produced using generative AI that invokes avant-garde film styles of the 1960s-70s while meditating on the future of AI. “Republicans in Love” by Scott Rettberg (2023) is a work that investigates text-to-image generation as a type of writing, using prompts that explore the ironies and excesses of populist Trumpism. “Identity Upgrade” by Jhave (2023) is a series of short films that make use of AI-generated scripts and text-to-image generation to consider future trajectories for humanity and autonomous AI. “Creativity Machines” by Eamon O’Kane (2023) consists of images, based on classic psychological research into the creativity of architects, re-interpreted by AI. Alinta Krauth and Jason Nelson’s “Ultra Large Digital Narratives” (2023) uses the outpainting capabilities of a text-to-image generation platform combined with bespoke animations to create visual storyworlds. Talan Memmott’s “Introducing Lary: The San Biagio Frescoes of Pietro Golamuto” (2023) consists of generated images, animation, and voice that meditate on the artist’s throat cancer through the story of a fictional Renaissance saint of laryngectomies. Avital Meshi’s “Calling Myself Self” (2023) combines image generation, text animation and dance to interpolate and confound human self-perception. Eamon O’Kane’s “Image Tree Tests” (2023) animates the artist’s own tree drawings along with their AI-interpreted counterparts. Mario Santamaria and Alex Saum’s “Internet Tour: San Francisco Bay Area” (2023), with video by Dylan Reibling, documents a bus tour of contemporary IT infrastructure, highlighting how AI consumes massive amounts of energy and its fraught ecological consequences.
Center for Digital Narrative, UiB
Langes gate 1-3. Exhibited October 1-October 25. Opening event October 17, 17.00. Open 13.00-16.00 Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
The portion of the More Than Meets AI show at the Center for Digital Narrative's headquarters at Langesgate 1 features a variety of approaches to creating with AI, ranging from Large Language Model-assisted coding to video generation pipelines that enable AI to autonomously produce artworks, to AI generated 3-D prints and more. Works featured in the show include the Hedy Lamar Chatbot by Lina Harder (2024), The Echoes Unseen trilogy by Sachicko Hayashi (2024), Ai-Artist by David Jhave Johnston (2024), Digital Poetry AI Coding Sketchbook by Scott Rettberg (2023), CDN Publications on AI 2022-2024, Infantry by Micol Hebron (2024), Mutacosm by Jason Nelson (2024), Missing Objects Library by Jill Miller (2024), Replicator Probes by Funda Zeynep Ayguler, Silver Carlsson, Magnhild Øen Nordahl, Gabriele de Seta and Andreas Zißler (2023), Those Who Affirm the Spontaneity of Every Event by Ryoto Matsumoto (2014), Octopus by Alinta Krauth and Jason Nelson (2024), The Blank Space by Ben Grosser (2024), and prints from Republicans in Love by Scott Rettberg (2023).
Joy Forum, KMD, UiB
Møllendalsveien 61. Exhibited October 7-October 24. Opening event October 18, 13.00. Open 10.00-16.00.
Works featured in the show include A History of the Future of Narrative by Robert Coover (Lecture, 2008), Geometrical Lotus by Marcus West (1978), Technocultures Symposium at the New York Digital Salon by Knowlton, Lovejoy, Snelson, Schwartz (2009), Random Sentences by Victor H. Yngve (1961), Stochastic Texts by Theo Lutz (1959), The House of Dust by Alison Knowles and James Tenney (1967),
USF Verftet, presented in collaboration with the Bergen International Film Festival
Georgernes Verft 12. Exhibited October 16-October 24. Opening event October 16th, 18.30. Open 14.00-20.00.
Works featured in the show include A Cripistemology of Breath by Talan Memmott (2024), Playing Peekaboo by Avital Meshi (2023), Studio Visit: In the Posthuman Altier by Patrick Lichty (2021), Hybrid Portraits by Eamon O’Kane (2024), Fin du Monde by Scott Rettberg (2024), Grand Hotel Sand Fountain by Roderick Coover, Caitlin Fisher, Scott Rettberg (2024), Motion in Horse by Gabrielle da Seta (2024), Ultra-Large Digital Narratives by Alinta Krauth & Jason Nelson (2024), Hallucinations are (almost) all you Need by David Jhave Johnston (2024), I know what you’re thinking by Mario de la Ossa (2021), AI Tree Test by Eamon O'Kane (2023), Posthuman Cinema by Mark Amerika, Will Luers, and Chad Mossholder (2023)
Rom 61, KMD, UiB
Møllendalsveien 61. Exhibited October 15-October 24. Opening event October 18, 13.00. Open 13.00-17.00.
Works featured in the show include Nighttime by Carl Hugo Hernqvist (2023), The Bat Translator by Alinta Krauth (2021), Women Reclaiming AI by Birgette Catherine Aga, Coral Manton (2018-2023), Hybrid Portraits by Eamon O’Kane (2024), A Collage of a Person in Pink by Micol Hebron (2023), Imaginary Ideal Studio by Eamon O’Kane (2024), Sovereignty (Eyes in the Dark) by Edgar Fabian Frias (2023), Cursive Binary by Sasha Stiles (2024),
KMD Library, KMD, UiB
Møllendalsveien 61. Exhibited October 15-October 24. Opening event October 18, 13.00.
Works featured in the show include ReRites: Human + AI Poetry Generation by David Jhave Johnston (2022), We called us poetry by Halim Madi (2023), and an exhibit of algorithmically generated books and books about contemporary AI.
Tårnsalen, UiB, seminar on AI and digital narrative
Muséplassen 3. October 17, 13.00-17.00. Free, but registration due to seat restrictions, see program and signup links in the separate event.
