LIAO JIAMING

AI simulates the mind to project a form. When we frame an exhibition with its walls, its contents become replicable. An exhibition no longer opens a window to the experience of art. One creates something, technology recycles. If mastery, discipline and discourse are replicable, why create? The postmodern is a primal fear.

“Ungenerating AI”, in avantgarde terms, distinguishes between “arty tech” and “techie art”. Arty tech is the uncanny valley, a seamless replica of forms, like automata. It is “neither artificial nor intelligent” (Note 1). Techie art returns to institutions because its wordiness gets appropriated and absorbed, as if whatever one creates immediately belongs to institutions. It is “artificial stupidity”(Note 2). What was the original relationship between art and technology? Is it really necessary to have such a dichotomy, or even to be anti-technology?

“Ungenerating AI” not only invited 5 non-AI artists who use traditional and non-traditional materials, but also self-published a 6500-word curatorial statement. After a deep dive, everyone dismantled the narrative that their forebears had given technology. Subversively, how does AI find its way to become ”the” missing puzzle? Defining AI could also be beyond its mechanisms, sociocultural distribution and exhibition histories - what we won’t see but already know…

AI 模擬了我們的頭腦，取代了雙手去實現一種形式。囹圄困囿做展覽，展覽形成了實在的形式被複雜。策展不再是打開體驗藝術的窗口。既然有創作內容，科技便回收，抄考，取代。若任何工藝、界別和話語都輕易複製，為什麼還要創造？後現代是原始的恐懼。

以前衞派的定義，「人工逆生志」分辨了「形似藝術科技」和「神似科技藝術」。形似藝術是恐怖谷效應，以科技無痕流水複製形式。猶如機械人，「既非人工，亦非智能」(註1)。而神似科技藝術，因為背後的長篇解說被挪用和吸納而回歸了體制，幾乎任何發起都成為了體制對話，可謂「人工蠢材」(註2)。但是，藝術和科技本來的關係是什麼？真的應如此一面倒地對立，甚至乎要反科技嗎？

「人工逆生志」除了邀請了 5 位與 AI 不相關的藝術家，他們有傳統、非傳統和跨媒介創作，並且自行出版了一萬二千字的策展論述，大家在研習過程發展了新的批判槪念。AI 應該如何「逆生成」(ungenerate)，返回到作品和作品的世界，成為「那一塊」填補的碎片？重新定義 AI 要超越機械、社會文化分配和展覽歷史——那些我們看不見但已經知道的東西……

*Note 1: Kate Crawford, “Atlas of AI” (2021)
*Note 2: Alan Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950)