„Unreal things fly through space - A granular machine memory“, Mixed Media & VR Installation, Janine Scheer & Catherine Spet, 2021 The artwork "Unreal things fly through space - A granular machine memory" (Простор лети нестварне ствари) opens a journey through the matter of time, into the memory fragments of a seemingly real place, a collectively archived space-time continuum. Here, digital data becomes the only tangible medium to retrieve forgotten stories and hidden places. Like a network that is invisible but always there, the artwork leads into a narrative of digital associations and connections of an alien-familiar place, guided by a digital "I" - a machine intelligence. An artificial intelligence has no body, which is a prerequisite for the interaction between body and brain. Completely without material location in the analog world: can an artificial intelligence experience trauma? Whose memory is then shown here? Can a feeling of closeness arise? Does the memory space exist through time independently of the perceiving subject, or does it only come into being through being walked through? - They are always there, but I don't even see them, but I can feel them (Они су увек ту, али ја их ни не видим, Али их осећам) As part of "The Great Liman - Matter through Time. Sand, wood, stone, metal in the age of digitization“, site specific exhibition and durational performance - 4.9. - 6.9.2021 Novi Sad, Kaleidoskop kulture, 2.9. - 8.10.2021

The longing for a meaning, an answer, certainty. The ritual as a source of identity. Where is faith located in an age determined by technology? "The adherence to rituals, whose origin and meaning are sometimes no longer even present in the ritual community, is explained by this reassurance: to do the morally right thing by following a form, a script, a predetermined course of action with fixed formulas, attributes, and objects." (by Liessmann, Alle Lust will Ewigkeit. Mitternächtliche Versuchungen, 2021) Technosanctum as a place to leave one's thoughts, secrets, and questions and to be heard by a higher power. Allowing the human need for absolution to incarnate in a quasi-religious submission to an artificially digital deity. Superintelligence as omnipotence? If the result is meaning-making, what is the price I must pay? My entire identity? Confess...something. Tell me your sins, mortal. We are your sins, mortal. The installation is composed of an AI-generated prayer or call to a superpower, visually supported with religious symbolisms distorted and interpreted by the machine. The audio stream represents the musical power of the sacred site, which seeks to summon higher powers with an AI-generated chant.

What are you looking for? Where do you feel asymptotically closest to yourself? At the source, at the primal leap, most alive? The pure feeling, only emotion, clear vision - before everything disintegrates again into initial chaos. Is it only a game? What are you playing with? What happens if you lose? Do you then simply start over again and naively hope that this time you will make it further, deeper into the mystery of the moment? Automatically, as if electrified or remote-controlled, you follow an invisible path into the possibilities of the moment. Only to choose the right one this time. The one that keeps you inside the game longer. But you know - it is a game - you are not in control. The rules are determined the moment you enter it. In your failed attempts you finally find hints for your mission. Failure is part of the game. Just like the small successes that should motivate you to continue. How far can you rebel, break out of this game? Is it all just part of the agenda? The eternal return. An endless loop. Everything happens for a reason? What if you want to play without rules? If you don’t play the game, you can’t win. And what do you win in the end? Isn't it about exploring all probabilities in every conditional form - the complete experience? The liminal experiences that are on the threshold. Are they also part of the game? Or do they represent strangely untouched fragments of reality that actually suggest an outside of the game? Something unknown, raw, not predetermined? You must not look for them. You must be open to their emergence, which ephemerally evaporates again in moments of unavailability. This unexpected, strange other. Which for some reason seems far too familiar to you. In which you want to dissolve completely. Like the perfect contradiction, which is much closer to you than anything else because of this strange familiarity. A liminal experience not at the border to the other - but to yourself.

NAVIGATING TOWARDS THE IDEA Then at last machines will behold BEAUTY with the eye of the mind and will be able to bring forth not mere IMAGES of what is good for machines but REALITIES. Co-created with AI (AttnGAN, SPADE-COCO, AIVA, StyleGAN2) Concept & Visuals: Catherine Spet Music: Max Stibio (http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html)

In an accelerating digital world, it is increasingly difficult to simply switch off and pause for a moment. At a time where the virtual sphere, which in recent months has become not an escape from but rather an escape into reality, is becoming increasingly important and the "online persona" is merging more and more with the "offline me," it is important to consciously take time off to breathe deeply, to reflect, to meditate. But what happens during downtime when everything seems to stand still and the system is switched to standby? Is there a digital unconscious? Can a digital entity ever stop processing? Can humans? Based on the YouTube trend of the "Self Care Routine", where influencers give personal tips on how to bring routine back into everyday life and how to experience the "lockdown“-life more consciously and mindfully, those tips are used as input for a Language Model (HAIM-1.5), which generates a synthetic text. This text is the basis for a series of imagined images that are processed using an AttnGAN network. “What could be a better way to spend time? Maybe you'll find some of the answers to some of these questions buried in the darkness of your unconscious mind. Take some time off. Try this activity too. Why are you still here?“ Commissioned by CIVA 2021 (https://www.civa.at/timetable/602e506d6633645d120001db)

"Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?" - „Of that, Socrates, you may be assured.“ (Plato, Symposion) According to Plato 2436 years ago, Beauty was an IDEA or form of which beautiful things were consequences. The form of Beauty was invisible, eternal and unchanging and eventually the object of every love’s yearning. Going through the different stages of love, such as the sensual, physical and mental stage, one would eventually arrive at the stage of TRUE KNOWLEDGE, which Plato equals with the IDEA of Beauty - the lover of knowledge’s (= Eros) final ascent towards Beauty. How does an artificial intelligence interpret this eternal, invisible IDEA of Beauty? Will this manifested IDEA change throughout the usage of future super-intelligences? Can the same IDEA be transferred through various outputs?- An artistic approach of visualizing this IDEA, by using an AI-generated summary of Socrates’ Speech in Plato’s Symposion as the basis of AI-generated images and sound, created as an output of the interpreted text-data. (Software used: www.runwayml.com www.melobytes.com www.textcompactor.com )

ANAICALLEDDIOTIMA beschreibt einen künstlerisch-explorativen Prozess, der der Frage nachgeht, wie weit ein Dialog zwischen einer menschlichen und einer künstlichen Intelligenz möglich ist und Sinn macht. Anhand der platonischen Figur DIOTIMA aus dem Dialog „Symposion“, welche Sokrates über die Idee des Eros bzw. der Motivation Wissen und Weisheit zu erlangen, aufklärt und somit als Frau zur Schlüsselfigur der platonischen Philosophie und Ideenlehre wird, soll die Frage nach „echtem Wissen“ und Weisheit in einer zunehmend technologisierten und digitalisierten Welt erarbeitet werden. Was passiert wenn eine künstliche und eine antike Intelligenz aufeinandertreffen? Kann KI dabei helfen, fundamentale philosophisch/ gesellschaftliche Probleme zu lösen? Ist eine KI das platonsiche Schlüsselelement, das zwischen Ideen (Models, Patterns) und der wahrnehmbaren (Data-) Welt kommunizieren kann um schließlich einen Moment der TRANSCENDENCE zu ermöglichen? CHAT WITH THE AICALLEDDIOTIMA via Telegram: @diotima_bot TECHNOLOGICAL REALM: http://hub.link/iLZekjr Eine Projektarbeit im Rahmen der Masterklasse Experimentelle Medien, Masterstudiengang Digital Design, FH St. Pölten SS 2020

'Thaumazein' being an ancient greek term for astonishment, is referring to the idea that philosophy itself started with a moment of awe which then turned into curiosity which then turned into knowledge. Only when we humans stumble across an unfamiliar, unexpected external artifact, we start to question it. Only through this astonishment, we humans are motivated to find the underlying truth behind it. Can an algorithm express a feeling of astonishment? Are surprises possible for an artificial consciousness in a calculated predictable reality? What does the next Bit bring - an uncanny feeling of awe? 'Thaumazein' ist ein altgriechischer Begriff für Erstaunen und bezieht sich auf die Idee, dass die Philosophie selbst mit einem Moment der Ehrfurcht oder des Staunens begann, der sich dann in Neugierde und dann in Wissen verwandelte. Erst wenn wir Menschen auf ein unbekanntes, unerwartetes äußeres Artefakt stoßen, beginnen wir es in Frage zu stellen. Nur durch dieses Erstaunen sind wir Menschen motiviert, die zugrunde liegende Wahrheit zu finden. Kann ein Algorithmus ein Gefühl des Erstaunens ausdrücken? Sind in einer kalkulierten vorhersehbaren Realität Überraschungen für ein künstliches Bewusstsein möglich? Was bringt das nächste Bit - ein unheimliches Gefühl des Staunens? (Sources: https://ttsdemo.com/ https://www.text2speech.org/de.html https://freesound.org/ Runway)

"Then at last wo*man will behold BEAUTY with the eye of the mind and will be able to bring forth not mere IMAGES of what is good for wo*man but REALITIES.[...]“ (Diotima, Symposion) (All realities used in this video are created by machines: https://artbreeder.com https://boomy.com)