Matadero Madrid center for contemporary creation
FREEPORT 1: ANATOMIES OF A BLACK BOX
Taking Joler and Crawford’s “Anatomy of an AI system” as the starting point, you will be led into a roller coaster trip through the simple internet packet delivery system, following with Facebook’s sophisticated algorithmic factory, and going even deeper into fashionable corporate devices that actually operate as planetary-scale systems of knowledge extraction under the futurist label of machine learning and the likes.
As 21st century cartographers, you will be encouraged to journey both in time and space: from deep time of mineral formation to the fast future of dystopian social media, from the nano scale of battery molecules to the planetary scale of contemporary production and distribution supply chains. As a matter of fact, the main purpose of this laboratory is finding ways to represent such a scaling issue, focusing on either the big or the tiny, either the slow or the superfast.
The “Anatomy of an AI system” conceptual map will then appear as a narrative strategy that reduces complexity, magnifies details, follows narrative trails, or establishes links where apparently there is none. You will take from there, using your skills to dive, for instance, into site-specific research or follow the lifespan of one specific element. In the process you may find new lenses to focus on invisible phenomena or, on the contrary, zoom out and draw a whole new cosmo-technological cartography.
Mapping will be explored as a form of non-linear poetry or storytelling, where both technical tools (such as network graphs, metadata analysis, patent investigations, interface scraping) and a conceptual approach (assemblages, maps of errors, approximations, biases, faults, fallacies and vulnerabilities) will be necessary.
Led by Vladan Joler, professor at the Academy of Arts of the University of Novi Sad and founder of SHARE Foundation. He is leading SHARE Lab, a research and investigation lab that explores the technical and social aspects of algorithmic transparency, digital labor exploitation, invisible infrastructures, and technological black boxes.
Curated by Bani Brusadin, co-curator of Matadero’s own Tentacular festival and co-founder, together with artists Eva & Franco Mattes, of The Influencers, a festival of unconventional art, communication guerrilla and radical entertainment (CCCB Barcelona, 2004 - 2019). He teaches courses related to art production, digital cultures, technology and society at the University of Barcelona, Elisava Design School and Esdi. https://theinfluencers.org/bani-brusadin