Understanding Machine Learning for Artists Who Want to Co-operate with AI

This event was a performance and lecture presented by Seokjun Ha (Treasure Island Collective), a participating artist in the 10th Seoul Mediacity Biennale Eu Zên.

Ha presented a video that explains the principles of machine learning for artists seeking to collaborate with artificial intelligence. Today, through machine learning, AI is often perceived as a divine entity possessing unprecedented, infinite capabilities. It is portrayed as a “new matter” that realizes all future possibilities, even encroaching upon the realm of the immaterial. The artist explained the learning process of machine learning to shed light on the role these algorithms play between the material and the immaterial.

In the following performance, the artist carried a large television—displaying machine learning footage in real-time—as he moved throughout the exhibition space. Through this act, he expressed his unstable and complex emotions regarding the “algorithmization of the material and the immaterial” that emerges during the AI learning process. Enduring the physical burden of the 40kg television, the artist evoked the atmosphere of a religious ritual or a grueling pilgrimage.

The contrast between this sense of religious asceticism and the audience gathered to witness the divine power of future technology creates a multifaceted shadow, prompting us to question what kind of life we truly desire in the future.