Machination/ Why Future Still Needs Us

See how past and future advances in technology interact with humans and creativity in the exhibitions – Machination and Why future still needs us: AI and humanity - at QUT Art Museum.

The exhibitions will also feature as part of Robotronica, QUT’s robotics and technology spectacular on Sunday, August 20.

You might well wonder what robots and artificial intelligence have got to do with an Art Museum, but the exhibitions will show that artists offer a unique perspective on the future – one that perhaps is less sinister and authoritarian than many envisaged in books and films.

The fact that artists regularly engage with change rather than being afraid of it, has helped new concepts become commonplace. One example is the then-revolutionary ‘jump-cut’ introduced in 1960s New Wave French cinema which can be seen in TV soapies today.

The two exhibitions provide a glimpse into unique ways of looking at our world using tools that new technologies have to offer. The creative and sometimes humorous approach aims to help us to dream rather than to despair.

Machination will take us back to the 1950s when humanity’s electronic journey started in earnest with robots on wheels – a far cry from the cutting-edge technologies of today. Victorian regional artist duo, Jesse Stevens and Dean Petersen, combine human/object hybrid forms with collaged archival video and sound. Their work makes you aware of how the past has predicated the strange fake news media world we now live in.

In contrast, the partner exhibition, Why future still needs us: AI and humanity, locates us in a not-too-distant future where machines and humans actively collaborate. This exhibition is located in the third and fourth industrial revolutions where the human brain is substituted with intelligent machines, with AI already able to do creative things like write novels and compose music.

Nice to know - QUT Art Museum has partnered with Art Center Nabi in Korea for this exhibition, with the help of an Australia Korea Foundation grant.

Need to know - There will be opening weekend events such as Special exhibition preview and artist talks, and Workshop: Machine learning for Creatives. At Robotronica on August 20, you will have the opportunity to work with a LEGO Robotics drawing robot.

For more information visit www.artmuseum.qut.edu.au and www.robotronica.qut.edu.au

By Vicki Englund

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