The four panels address the following questions: How do recent tools in computation shape the models that scientists, artists, and engineers make of the world and universe?
Can artists and scientists create a world in which Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and artificial intelligence (AI) are meaningfully brought together?
Can AI and software systems explain how historically recalcitrant forms of oppression persist, embedded in our technologies?
Can these same agents possibly provide alternative ways of being and living together?
How has computation shaped the concept of intelligence and what models for the unfolding or formation of ideas does it provide?
“Unfolding Intelligence: The Art and Science of Contemporary Computation” is third in a series of MIT CAST symposia that bring together artists, scientists, engineers, and humanists from a variety of disciplines to address topics of common concern in areas of rapidly evolving research and urgent social relevance.
Exhibitions: Generative Unfoldings and The Infinite College
For the entire program and all panel, please view our first article, HERE
Generative Unfoldings Exhibition Now on View + Opening Reception
Curated by poet and MIT professor of digital media Nick Montfort, the Generative Unfoldings exhibition is a collection of 14 generative software artworks commissioned by MIT CAST.
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 1, 2021 / 5:00–7:00pm EST
Meet the Generative Unfoldings artists, curator, and jurors at the exhibition reception and “Unfolding Intelligence” symposium opening event
The Invisible College: Color Confinement by Matthew Ritchie
Film premiere April 6, 2021
Meet the artist and members of the project team in a live Q&A April 9, 2021
The Invisible College, created by 2018–21 MIT CAST Dasha Zhukova Distinguished Visiting
Artist Matthew Ritchie, incorporates the many dimensions of the university—social, material, intellectual, technological—from the informal conversations to the new technologies being developed in the labs. In exploring the Institute as both an information space and a physical one, Ritchie captures those states of turbulence, chaos, and indeterminacy—the rush between classes, or the blurry moment before a picture sharpens into legibility—sketchy zones that, as he says, create “the most generative space for the radical rethinking of reality.”
Film and Exhibition
Film premieres April 6, 2021 at 12:00am EST on e-Flux and will also be on view on the symposium’s exhibition website starting at 9:00am EST
Breakout Room
Live Interactive Q&A Event with Matthew Ritchie and William Lockett, Shara Nova, Sarah Schwettmann, Sarah Wolozin, and Evan Ziporyn
Friday, April 9, 2021 / 11:00am EST
Symposium Schedule
Panel Sessions:
Deep Time & Intelligence Panel Livestream Q&A
Monday, April 5 / 11:00am-12:00pm EST (video presentation available April 2)
Unfolding Models Panel Livestream Q&A
Monday, April 5 / 5:00-6:00pmEST (video presentation available April 2)
Bias in AI Panel Livestream presentations and Q&A
Wednesday, April 7 / 11:00am-1:00pm EST
Open Systems Panels Livestream presentations
Thursday, April 8 / Part One: 11:00am-12:00pm, Part Two: 5:00-7:00pm EST
Breakout Sessions: Meet the Speakers
Friday, April 9 / 11:00am EST
Join us during the final session of “Unfolding Intelligence” for several breakout rooms to explore hidden threads between the presentations, exhibitions, and panel discussions that occurred during the week. Attendees will have the opportunity to join symposium speakers and artists in breakout rooms that are thematically oriented based on public discussions on social media.
Follow @artsatmit and tag your questions and comments using #mitcast throughout the symposium to be part of the conversation.
About the Symposium
“Unfolding Intelligence: The Art and Science of Contemporary Computation” is third in a series of MIT CAST symposia that bring together artists, scientists, engineers, and humanists from a variety of disciplines to address topics of common concern in areas of rapidly evolving research and urgent social relevance. Learn more.
This virtual gathering has been organized by a team of colleagues from MIT CAST and partners at the MIT Center for Advanced Virtuality, the MIT Transmedia Storytelling Initiative, and the MIT Trope Tank. The parallel Wasserman Forum program, “Another World,” is presented by the MIT List Visual Arts Center.
Organizer of Unfolding Intelligence: The Art and Science of Contemporary Computation
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