SYMPOSIUM&Exhibition @./studio3
AIMadeMeDoIt
Exploring AI in Ordinaries of Everyday
The symposium will delve into the integration of artificial intelligence in everyday life, emphasizing its architectural and spatial implications. With a focus on the evolution of images and image-making, we will investigate topics spanning domestic environments to urban landscapes, addressing hidden labor, data ethics, and the environmental footprint of AI systems. The event will also explore how language acts as a quasi-designer in shaping digital interpretation, as well as the shifting role of images—moving from representational to operational and, ultimately, to invisible.
Today, AI technologies have seamlessly embedded themselves into our lives, transforming everything from personal routines to our built environment. From voice-based assistants to generative models, these systems have not only mediated but actively shaped our physical and virtual interactions. This new reality complicates traditional boundaries between human and machine activities—tasks like writing, navigating, and even caregiving are no longer solely human endeavors. AI has redefined our understanding of vision, perception, and space, presenting new ambiguities and reshaping familiar modes of interaction.
This rapid evolution has prompted significant regulatory and ethical discussions. The European Union’s recent enactment of the Artificial Intelligence Act (February 2024) reflects growing concerns over AI’s impact on society. Simultaneously, major tech companies like Nvidia, Google, and OpenAI continue to accelerate research, launching new models and expanding AI’s capabilities at an unprecedented pace.
During the symposium AI Made Me Do It we aim to uncover the layers of AI’s pervasive influence on our daily experiences. We will critically examine the datasets powering these technologies, scrutinizing their origins, the often-unseen human labor involved, and the natural resources required. Discussions will consider practical questions such as the amount of data needed for a robotic vacuum to efficiently navigate a home or the controversies behind training autonomous vehicles to understand complex urban scenarios.
By situating these AI systems within broader sociocultural and environmental contexts, we aim to reveal the hidden stories behind their development and deployment. Our goal is to foster a deeper understanding of how AI, through its reliance on human habitats and everyday objects, transforms our interactions and reframes our relationship with the world.
with an Introduction by Kathrin Aste
Keynotes from
Anna Pompermaier and Cenk Güzelis // Be My Guest!
./studio3, Department of Experimental Architecture, University of Innsbruck
Simone C. Niquille // Model Homes
technoflesh Studio, parametric truth Lab @Design Academy Eindhoven >> https://www.technofle.sh
Household robots rely on computer vision to navigate their environment, but a camera does not know what it is looking at. In order to recognise and understand the spaces and objects it encounters, a robot’s vision technology needs to learn about its future home. To this end, large datasets of 3D files are assembled into model homes, which ultimately are unable to represent the complexity of life itself. This gap between models of reality and the lived experience is referred to by scientist and philosopher Alfred Korzybski as ‘the map is not the territory’. If the map is not the territory, are the datasets the home? This talk speaks of the absurd and precarious state of the training datasets of home robots, using them as a way of entering a wider discussion about cohabitation with technology and an obsession of sorting the world into categories.
Rosa Menkman // The Crisis of the Image
Beyondresolution, im/possible lab @HEAD Geneva >> https://beyondresolution.info
Only in recent years, engineers and users have started to recognize that image resolution is more than just a simple quantitative or qualitative metric. The study of resolution inherently encompasses compromises, involving on genealogical, political, financial, and ethical judgments and biases. As we continue to grapple with forming an ontology of image resolution, the field of digital image processing has already evolved into more complex space. With the advent of AI, these realms are facing a new era marked by challenges not only of fidelity but also of worth, obsolescence and legibility.
Nicolas Gourault // Forever Blowing Bubbles
Filmmaker, Artist, Former Forensic Architecture Researcher >> https://nicolasgourault.fr
What do a facial recognition software, plastic seats in a football stadium and self-driving cars have in common? Through the presentation of some of my previous works and the research methodology behind them, I propose to explore how the built infrastructure and the advents of computer vision are shaping the public space that we are living in, all the while hiding the power relationships embedded in them.
Nic Clear // Animating Affect: Point Clouds and the Hauntological Turn in Architecture
Dean of School of Arts and Humanities and Professor of Architecture at the University of Huddersfield >> https://nicclear.com
In his presentation Professor Nic Clear will outline recent practice-based research from Clear+Park who use 3D laser scanning to create multidisciplinary works that operate across architecture, installation, and media arts. Clear+Park uses 3D scanning to capture spaces and create synthetic spatial representations and narratives that engage with and respond to specific site histories and spatial practices. In a recent series of works Clear + Park have been exploring imaginary architectural spaces through the assemblage of scanned fragments from different locations and scales to create uncanny compositions where specific conceptions of site are artificially manipulated with the works exhibited as immersive installations. Through their research Clear+Park explore ways in which architects and artists can reproduce, develop, manipulate, and represent spaces using advanced digital technology in ways that engage with non-specialist audiences.
Valdemar Danry // Artificial Intelligence as Cognitive Organs
MIT Media Lab, Fluid Interfaces Group >> https://valdemardanry.com
Humans are inherently driven to integrate external objects into our cognitive architectures, allowing us to see, remember and act in ways that we cannot do with our biological structures alone. So far, these tools have remained mostly used for assistance in narrow tasks outside our bodies, but with recent progress in artificial intelligence a new type of paradigm starts to emerge where artificial intelligence is directly integrating and mediating every part of our cognitive processes, increasingly by integrating with our nervous system as cognitive organs. This talk draws on personal research at the MIT Media Lab and explores how AI is transforming from an external aid into an intrinsic part of our cognitive processes—enhancing reasoning capabilities, extending memory, amplifying perception through brain stimulation, directing attention, and translating intentions into creative actions.
and contributions from Jan Claßen, Thomas Edlinger, Pauline Heil, Nina Ziegler, Jacques Biever, Luca Lazzari and Mehmet Cakir
STREAMING LINK >> https://www.twitch.tv/studio3_uibk
DAY PROGRAM
EXHIBITION
Homeschool by Simone C. Niquille / technoflesh Studio
Sorting Song by Simone C. Niquille / technoflesh Studio
Beauty and the Beep by Simone C. Niquille / technoflesh Studio
The Shredded Hologram Rose by Rosa Menkman / Beyondresolution
Refractions1 by Rosa Menkman / Beyondresolution
Unknown Labels2 by Nicolas Gourault
Automated decision-making process by Mehmet Cakir
Toy World by Luca Lazzari and Jacques Biever
/x/sleven_leleven/x/-Mart by Pauline Heil and Nina Ziegler
Wizard of AI by Alan Warburton
1- This work was realised within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency at NeMe, co-funded by the European Union. This presentation is co-funded by Ars Electronica.
2- This work was realized within the framework of a European Media Art Platform residency at werkleitz, co-funded by the European Union. This presentation is co-funded by M-Cult.
