By The New Real

The Scottish AI Alliance funded The New Real Art Commission 2023 on a joint quest to better understand the “inflection point of machines as human-made agents of change,” through artistic practice. In doing so, we were fully aware of the pitfalls of anthropomorphising these “agents” as well as the difficult task of balancing the critical and the constructive approaches, at a time of great social, political, economic, and environmental uncertainty around Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

The creative community was up for the challenge and with a mind-blowing 79 applications received from our Open Call we had our work cut-out for us to select only five of the most innovative concepts for the development awards

Each artist/team tackled a different urgent challenge for our times: giving voice to those underrepresented in AI data (Johann Diedrick and Amina Abbas-Nazari); grappling with the implications of artificial superintelligence (Alice Bucknell); sensing lost loved ones in small datasets (Kasia Molga); community-centred approaches to machine learning (Sarah Ciston); and finding new metaphors to break open the 'black box' of AI (Linnea Langfjord Kristensen and Kevin Walker). (More on the results of their endeavours can be found here)

Each of these conceptual enquiries was responding to the upgraded capabilities of, The New Real Observatory platform (TNRO), which combines simple generative AI models with novel exploration tools that allow users greater control and ownership of their data and closer interaction with the generative process. "We hand designed the platform such that the data goes between the artist and a secure environment. They control the data. They own the data. They own the model. They own the outcome,” says Daga Panas, TNRO’s Lead Data Scientist based at the Data Science Unit at the School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh. 

In particular, this new approach to generative AI opens the space for secure enquiries into datasets of more personal nature and (partial) modeling that focuses on more targeted, meaningful conceptual connections. Rather than the generation of synthetic imagery or language as a type of imitation games, we focus on creating insights and relationships through association games. 

In addition, the TNRO platform contains climate models which are to be used as conceptual prompts, understanding our interaction with the generative AI through the lens of planetary environmental consciousness. 

Out of the five development awards, one artist was chosen for a full commission. We selected Kasia Molga’s How to Find the Soul of a Sailor project and embarked on a journey with her in exploring personal memory, small datasets, multi-model generative processing and environmental futures. 

Kasia’s ambition was to dialogue about the past, present and future of the oceans with her departed dad, Tadeusz, through the AI-powered interaction with his extensive diaries. This  resonated perfectly with our ambition to advance an experiential approach to understanding and engaging with AI.

Our new paradigm or experiential artificial intelligence (EAI) focuses on the design, use, and evaluation of AI in cultural or other real-world settings that foregrounds human experience and context. It combines arts and engineering to support rich and intuitive modes of model interpretation and interaction, making AI tangible and explicit.

With the help of The New Real’s technical team, Kasia has spent a year interrogating the detailed diary notes left behind by her father, a senior merchant navy sailor, to transcend the bonds of time and re-contextualise them for a potential future look at our oceans amongst the intensity of the climate crisis.. 

She created a prototype multimedia experience incorporating generative AI in physical pieces and within multiple films. Her exhibition uniquely combines English and Polish, creating a bilingual experience that delves into the profound topics of the intangibly personal connection to climate change and the digital afterlife. 

Her work not only honours the enduring power of memory but also showcases the potential benefits and drawbacks of various artificial intelligence tools to preserve and transform our personal histories. She invites audiences to immerse themselves in the future of our oceans and encourages them to probe her human-AI process. 

Kasia Molga’s How to Find the Soul of a Sailor, is open free to the public at the Inspace Gallery 12-21 December 2024 and 6-11 January 2025. Additional funding for their project has been secured from Arts Council England and Design Informatics. More information can be found here - How to Find the Soul of a Sailor — The New Real