Encoding Cultures: Anna Munster | From Aggregate to Regime: Models for Training Images

Recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence are revolutionizing the way with which we think and act. They give an idea of the fundamental changes that will affect our society in the coming years. The interdisciplinary symposium »Encoding Cultures. Living Amongst Intelligent Machines« brought scientists, programmers and developers, cultural theorists and artists into dialogue with a broader public. The lectures and discussions provide insight into the latest state of research and development in the field of machine learning and ask about the current and long-term effects of this technology on science, business, politics, art and society.

Anna Munster is Professor in Art and Design, University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia. Her book, An Aesthesia of Networks (MIT Press, 2013) explores expressions of networks beyond the ‘link-node’ image and new understandings of experience that account for relationality in contemporary assemblages of human and nonhuman technics. She is also the author of Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics (2006) She is a practicing media artist who regularly collaborates with Michele Barker. Their media environments explore animal, human and more-than-human movement and perception. Munster is currently collaborating with Adrian MacKenzie (Machine Learners, MIT Press, 2017), on a project that investigates the role of, especially, deep learning models in processes of re-imaging experience. Their research is funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery Project scheme.

Video documentary:

ZKM | Videostudio

Camera: Daniel Vogrin
Live-Editing: Moritz Büchner
Editing: Bastian Buchgraber