With the October launch event, we are starting a series of international initiatives aimed at broadening the public debate on Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a cultural force and its impact on society.

The discussions will feature guests from Poland and abroad, networking opportunities and presentations of artistic works that use AI or other emergent technologies in various formats. The event will bring together artistic, business and innovative communities to foster alliances between technology, social and artistic practice that serve the public interest.

The aim of the series is to understand new technologies and explore ways in which they can be used for the benefit of human culture, rather than against it. Alison Gopnik writes that AI is a cultural technology. The threat is not the advent of superintelligence, but the negative effects of technological systems disrupting the foundations of our culture. Thinking about AI in this way, we are able to ask questions about what technologies do to us and how we want to use them. Just as we have previously asked similar questions about television, the Internet or cell phones.

Another aim of the series is to show that the biggest challenge is not dealing with the mythical superintelligence that threatens us in the future. Both opportunities and risks come from how we interface with technologies today, here and now, and how we entrust power to a few companies and a small group of programmers who control artificial intelligence.

Finally, we want to show that AI can be discussed in ways that go beyond the intersection of business and technology. We want to showcase alternative solutions, experiments and work at the intersection of new technologies and the collective imagination. We want to show the many faces of AI.

Anna Lewanowicz (STUDIO theatregallery, PLAN C Foundation)
Alek Tarkowski (Open Future)
Anna Szylar (Monster Mind Studio, Digital Cultures)

Organiser: The PLAN C Social Innovation Foundation

Venues: Campus Cambridge Innovation Center, STUDIO teatrgaleria, Warsaw

Free entrance

Presentations of Experiences in New Technologies

This series will showcase works created with or in reference to new technologies. Among them is Cat Royale by Blast Theory, a piece that follows cats left in the care of an AI agent for several days, and Consensus Gentium, an award-winning work from SXSW and Ars Electronica that confronts us with the impact of surveillance technology on our daily lives. We will present the intriguing piece The Surrogate, where the artist offers future parents remote control over her body through a specially designed app. We will also explore the workings of AI algorithms in Me vs You, centered around a filmed wrestling match between artists, subsequently captured and analyzed by AI.

The program includes two VR experiences: Emperor, a moving story about aphasia from the perspective of an author experiencing her father’s illness, and A Simple Silence by Riverbed, presented at this year’s Venice Biennale, whose immersive performative quality draws viewers into the narrative. A Simple Silence is the final chapter in the Just for You cycle, where the viewer becomes a witness to an intimate and hypnotic spectacle through VR.

The works raise questions about control, ethics, and the future of human interaction with the digital world. This exhibition encourages expanding the context of the discursive program, prompting critical reflection on the role of technology in our daily lives and its impact on our choices, emotions, and freedom.

Free entrance

Team:
– Anna Lewanowicz (STUDIO theatregallery, PLAN C Foundation)
– Alek Tarkowski (Open Future)
– Anna Szylar (Monster Mind Studio, Digital Cultures)

Organiser:
The PLAN C Social Innovation Foundation aims to improve society by encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves, their communities and the state, and by promoting positive cultural change.