We are excited to announce that MIT Open Doc Lab has selected director Ellen Pearlman to be an MIT 2021 Fellow starting this spring.

Ellen will join a group of distinguished scholars, artists, creative technologists, and journalists - all of whom are exploring new forms of storytelling through emerging technologies and sciences.

While at MIT Open Doc Lab, Ellen will work on Language Is Leaving Me, an on-going project on the inherited traumatic memory of cultures and diasporas, or epigenetics, through the framework of AI and GANs. She will investigate what can, and cannot be retained and interpreted through digital means.

Thoughtworks Arts Presents at Bozar Labs in Conjunction With STARTS Prize 2020

As part of the Starts Prize 2020 exhibition held at Bozar this Fall, Bozar Lab organized a webinar on the topic of artist and technologist collaborations as a model for innovation.

Artist and A.I. resident, Karen Palmer (Storyteller From The Future), presented her immersive film project Perception iO, (developed at Thoughtworks Arts) and shared how it explores the intersection of A.I., bias, policing, and new, innovative forms of storytelling.

Perception iO received a Starts Honorary Mention and was included in the exhibition, Starts Prize ‘20 Speculating On The Future Through Art And Science.

Thoughtworks Arts director Andrew McWilliams shared how cross-collaborative programs at Thoughtworks Arts involving artists and technologists create powerful work driven by issues facing technology and society. Andrew detailed how such interactions are a critical tool for harnessing innovation.

To learn more about what was discussed, and who else presented at the webinar, read our latest blog post.

Nouf Aljowaysir and Ellen Pearlman’s Work Showcased on AI Art Gallery at NeurIPS4

Synthetic Media resident Nouf Aljowaysir and program director Ellen Pearlman both had new work exhibited at AI Art Gallery.

The online exhibition showcased works from the annual NeurIPS4 Creativity Workshop, a leading machine learning conference for creativity and design, which they both took part in.

Nouf’s prototypes from her residency project سلف [Salaf] (2020) were exhibited. سلف Salaf is part of an ongoing exploration into constructing her genealogical journey using two different voices: her own and an AI ‘narrator’.

Ellen’s immersive, interactive love story, AIBO: An Emotionally Intelligent, Artificial Intelligent Brainwave Opera (2020) was also included in the exhibition. AIBO is about our infatuation and trust in artificial intelligence played out between a human character Eva, and AIBO, a custom built ‘sicko’ AI.

Deepfakes Masterclass: Thoughtworks Arts and Baltan Labs

Thoughtworks Arts and Baltan Laboratoratories organized the two-week online masterclass: Deepfakes - Synthetic Media And Synthesis - led by Ellen Pearlman and Thoughtworker Julien Deswaef, and facilitated by Leif Czakai of Baltan Labs.

Participants were put into three interdisciplinary teams to collaborate on prototyping a synthetic media project. Teams explored the possibilities of artificially generated media and investigated artistic ways in which to apply these innovative findings. Their work was also driven by questions about the societal impacts of this rapidly growing field.

The masterclass concluded in final team presentations of their synthetic media projects, sharing what they learned to develop future projects on a larger scale.

Presentations

Andrew McWilliams and Synthetic Media resident Nouf Aljowaysir presented at the virtual Rethink Italy Service Design Festival in June. The live-streamed discussion addressed a Service Design audience with ideas on how art-based technology research informs designers examining a changing social landscape over time. The event showcased cross-collaborative programs by Thoughtworks Arts involving artists and technologists, and how those interactions drive questions about society, and harness technological innovation.

Andrew McWilliams presented Incubating Art & Technology Collaborations at Thoughtworks Berlin in early March, where Rachel Uma, founder of the School of Machines, Making and Make-Believe also spoke.

In London, Andrew gave a talk on The origin of ClimateAction.tech - an initiative he helped build to support and engage the entire tech sector in addressing the climate crisis.

Ellen Pearlman moderated The Grid panel in conjunction with Ars Electronica’s ‘In Kepler’s Garden’ - Life During (and After) Covid-19 - Artistic Strategies and Breakthrough Responses. The live panel discussion focused on how the current global pandemic has impacted art institutions, collaborative work, and audience involvement, especially in relation to innovative indy-led network solutions.

On November 24th, Ellen gave a lecture, Imagining the Unimaginable and Performing the Unthinkable, at the Baltan Laboratories event ICT meets the Arts: Douglas Rushkoff and Ellen Pearlman.

Ellen presented her paper “Running a Remote AI Livetime in the Cloud for an AI Brainwave Opera” at the NowNetArts conference. The event took place in early November and was co-hosted by the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University and the Institute for Advanced Computational Science at Stony Brook University.

Ellen gave the keynote at NordiCHI in Tallinn, Estonia on October 29th. She spoke about how she built a “Sicko AI” and the implications of her discoveries.

She also presented virtually at ISEA 2020 Montreal - Why Sentience?, speaking on her work “AIBO: An Emotionally Intelligent Artificial Intelligent Brainwave Opera: Part 2 -The Making Of A “Sicko” AI.

News from Past Thoughtworks Arts Residents

Heather Dewey-Hagborg co-curated for the New York University Abu Dhabi Art gallery “not in, of, along, or relating to a line.” The exhibition, which was designed specifically to be viewed on mobile devices, investigates the mutability of identity through and with new technologies. Heather also has new artwork premiering at Fridman Gallery in NYC in the group show “A stranger’s soul is a deep well.” Her new piece is titled Watson’s Ghost. Heather also presented virtually on November 2nd as part of The Unconference Episodes at the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival 2020. Heather recently became a visiting assistant professor at New York University - Abu Dhabi.

Karen Palmer was awarded an Honorary Mention for the Starts 2020 Prize of the European Commission honoring Innovation in Technology, Industry and Society stimulated by the Arts for Perception iO, an immersive, AI video installation developed at Thoughtworks Arts. Perception iO was also a part of the Expo Starts Prize exhibition at Bozar in Brussels, where art and science joined forces to think about the future.

Catie Cuan was highlighted in an article by The New York Times, Dances With Robots, and Other Tales From the Outer Limits, which highlighted work developed at Thoughtworks Arts. Catie was also featured in the article, Why Robots Need Choreographers by Dance Magazine.

James Coupe received an Honorary Mention from the prestigious Prix Ars Electronica 2020 Awards for his interactive, deepfake installation, Warriors.

Updates from Art-A-Hack™ Alumni

Kat Mustatea was awarded a literature grant by the Cafe Royal Cultural Foundation for her work, Voidopolis, a retelling of Dante’s Inferno, informed by the grim experience of wandering through NYC during a pandemic.

Kat Sullivan along with American Ballet Theatre Principal Dancer Cassandra Trenary received a Guggenheim Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commission for their project “Kat & Cassie Make A Ballet” that combines dance, motion capture, and game engine technologies.

Sean Montgomery, head of EmotiBit, presented Introspection and Biofeedback Art at the ISEA Montreal 2020 conference.

Heidi J. Boisvert, (Art-A-Hack ‘18 City Tech partner) is measuring our unconscious response to media and gave a recent TEDTalk: How I’m using biological data to tell better stories - and spark social change. The Denver Center For The Performing Arts announced Heidi as part of the creative team behind the new immersive production Theater of the Mind. As the technology designer, she will be collaborating with co-creator David Byrne.

Publications

Ellen Pearlman: AI Comes of Age - Performance Arts Journal(PAJ), MIT Press. Dance for Transformation: “DANCEDEMIC” AlumniTies, Medium. Cyborg Arts Co-Lab: Interdisciplinary Collaboration Enriched Through Art-A-Hack™ Practices -Art Hack Practice: Critical Intersections of Art, Innovation and the Maker Movement, 1st Edition, Edited by Victoria Bradbury and Suzy O’Hara, Routledge Publication. The Resurgence of Russian Cosmism - Performance Arts Journal(PAJ), MIT Press.

Catie Cuan, Ellen Pearlman, and Andrew McWilliams: Output: Translating Robot and Human Movers Across Platforms in a Sequentially Improvised Performance - From the 2019 AISB (The Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour) Machine Movement Lab at Falmouth University, UK.

Blog Posts

• Thoughtworks Arts Presents at Bozar Labs in Line With STARTS Prize 2020 by the Residency Team
• New York Times Features Catie Cuan’s Project With Thoughtworks Arts by the Residency Team
• Life During (and After) Covid-19 - Artistic Strategies and Breakthrough Responses by the Residency Team
• Confronting the Unknown: Art & Technology Research for Service Design by the Residency Team
• Dancedemic World Premiere at Battery Dance Virtual Festival by the Residency Team
• Welcoming Our New Residents to Thoughtworks Arts Residency by the Residency Team
• Showcase of Art & Emerging Technology Projects at Thoughtworks Germany by the Residency Team
• A.I. Brainwave Opera Has World Premiere at the Estonian Academy of Music by the Residency Team
• Rachel Uwa Shares the Origins of Her Berlin Art and Technology School by the Residency Team
• Ellen Pearlman Presents at U.S. Fulbright Alumni Exchange Seminar by the Residency Team.
• Ellen Pearlman and Rashin Fahandej Selected for ZERO1 2020 Incubator by the Residency Team
• Karen Palmer Exhibits at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York by the Residency Team
• Rashin Fahandej’s Residency Project Exhibited at ICA Boston Biennial by the Residency Team
• Max Razdow, Ollie Razdow, and Jamie Zigelbaum Awarded Blockchain AI Residency by the Residency Team
• Rashin Fahandej Awarded Volumetric Filmmaking Residency by the Residency Team
• Why We Are Investigating the Democratization of AI via Blockchain by the Residency Directors
• PBS Features Thoughtworks Arts Resident & Interaction Technology by the Residency Team
• EmoPy: A Machine Learning Toolkit For Emotional Expression by Angelica Perez
• Industrial Robotics and Human Movement: New Experiments by the Residency Team
• Recognizing Human Facial Expression With Machine Learning by Angelica Perez
• How Arts Programs Drive Innovation at Thoughtworks by Andrew McWilliams
• How Artists Are Reshaping Emerging Technology Research by Andrew McWilliams
• Robotics Artists Begin Their Residencies at Thoughtworks by the Residency Team
• Karen Palmer: The Film That Watches You Back by the Residency Team
• Adrianne Wortzel and Catie Cuan Awarded Robotics Residency by the Residency Team

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