Existential crises of conscious machines: reflections on the machine-like condition through art and speculative philosophy
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Thinking about science and technology from the humanities allows us to project the type of society we want to be in the future. We must be aware that, to face the current challenges, we have to break down the cultural divisions and understand the world in a transversal way. Now, thanks to scientific and technological development, we know that we will never know everything; we need to learn and live with uncertainty and mystery. Creative thinking, and specifically art, is a practice that allows us to explore the unknown without seeking an absolute answer to everything since sometimes there is simply no answer, but new questions that are a priori unimaginable.
In my recent artistic practice, I have devoted my studies to our relationship with technology, focusing on the social role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and intertwining critical thinking with technical experimentation. My goal is to open and inhabit a crack of thought on today’s techno-scientific challenges, using art and imagination as tools.
Through the development of different electronic art pieces, I have allowed myself to imagine post-singular artificial identities embodied in conscious robots, through which I have been creating a set of speculative narratives about alternative technologies. These artificial entities flee from dystopian projections and are always endowed with a multiple subject condition, acting as a social reflex.
As an allegory, these pieces represent the evolution of technological objects in organic systems, proposing a way of understanding technologies as something separate from human beings and inviting to value machines in their own genesis. In this essay, I review the conceptual bases of my artistic research, showing practical examples and defending speculative art as a tool to reformulate the imaginaries imposed by the dominant narrative, redefining our role in the new technosocial cosmology.
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Mónica Rikić Fusté, Independent artist
Electronic artist. National Award of Culture of Catalonia 2021. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona. She then studied a Master of Digital Arts at the Pompeu Fabra University, where she discovered code and electronics, a compelling artistic language in accordance with her creative needs. She is currently finishing her master's degree in contemporary philosophy at the UOC.
With her works, she participated in international festivals such as Ars Electronica in Linz, Creative Tech Week in New York, Robotronica in Austalia or FILE in Brazil, among others, and has exhibited in national institutions such as the CCCB, CaixaForum, Arts Santa Mònica or Disseny Hub. She has been awarded the National Culture Award of Catalonia 2021, at the Japan Media Arts Festival, Amaze Berlin, Margaret Guthman Musical Instrument Competition (Atlanta) and a Leonardo scholarship for Researchers and Cultural Creators of the BBVA Foundation 2018. She has performed
artistic residencies to TAG in Montreal, QUT in Australia, Platohedro to Medellín, Medialab Prado in Madrid and Etopia to Zaragoza. Recently one of her works has been incorporated in the BEEP {collection;} of electronic art.
References
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