About Singularity42!

The assumption that computing machines will soon be able to simulate intelligence, the assumption that motivated the creation of Artificial Intelligence as a new scientific discipline in the fifties, continues to feed our imagination. More than ever, we are today living seamlessly in multiple digital and physical worlds whose boundaries are becoming more and more blurred. We interact every day with machines that perform tasks that we previously thought were reserved for humans. The creation of artificial life seems to be within reach today. The very notion of Artificial Intelligence evolved from bare simulation of intelligence for the execution of specific tasks to the promise of effective intelligent machine capable of executing autonomously and on their own initiative general tasks in place of humans. Are we moving inexorably towards the point of singularity when machines created by humankind will become so intelligent that they will surpass it, and ultimately replace it? Is singularity conceivable? Is it achievable? Will this moment ever come?

Gathering artists and scientists, the projects consists in the exploration of singularity from many different viewpoints: as a concept, a moment in time or an actual event; from utopic expectations to dystopic fears; from its possible occurrence to its actual advent; looking at the impact of AI on our today and tomorrow daily lives; looking at places where human and machine already entwine; exploring how creative power of human being is impacted by AI. Both AI and art transform our lives in various ways, between utility and commodities up to the vision of ourselves within the society. In many instances beyond utilitarian functions, they cross-fertilize each other.

Through a series of art exhibitions, Singularity 42! will invite the visitors of the pavilion to a dialogue with the artists and the scientists, to the exploration of their own relation with AI, and to sense the potentiality or impossibility of singularity. The exhibited artworks will remix various relationships between art and AI, with AI as an inspiration for art and art as a creative sparkle for AI, AI as a process and a tool for art, AI as a component of the artistic experience.

The exhibitions will consist in two complementary parts:

•  AI Habbitville An overarching installation co-created collectively by a group of artists and scientists to question diverse thematic aspect of AI, with AI, exhibited during the whole 2022 year as a central piece in the AI&Art Pavilion.

• Ubiquitous worlds. An exploration of physical and virtual realities, endowing us with the gift of ubiquity and the capacity to evolve in the global cyber-physical social system.
• My life as a robot. An exploration of AI incarnation in a mechanical body, its relationship with human, on how human and artificial intelligences intertwine with biological and mechanical bodies.
      Give me space. Beyond earth, time and space rapidly overpass our biological condition. An exploration of space colonization and how we overcome our limitations.

• Mind if I was artificial? An exploration of consciousness, mind and brain, of the possibility of artificial life.

• When I left, right was left, right now whose rights are left? An exploration of language, logic, and ethics.

• Benevolution – Malevolution. An exploration of utopias and dystopias of technology induced change.

The collective interactive art installation for AI Habbitville will be created with the insightful support of the team of Vincent Koenig who leads the HCI research group and the HCI-usability laboratory at the University. The process will be organised in several phases during 2021 for the creation and implementation, and exhibited in the pavilion during 2022. The process is as follow and will start in end of february:

• Creation workshops with artists, researchers and students (S1 2021) – At least one workshop per month in the HCI-Usability of the university at Belval
• Design and prototype (end S1 2021) – In the AI&Art pavilion premises in Belval
• Implementation (S2 2021, starting in July) – In the AI&Art pavilion premises in Belval
•  On site testing (S2 2021) – In the AI&Art pavilion premises in Belval
• Installation exhibition (2022) – In the AI&Art pavilion premises in Belval

The AI Habbitville installation will receive a global lump sum budget for the creation, the implementation and the exhibition. The exact distribution of the budget will depend on the outcome of the creation process and will be discussed among the team.

The AI Habbitville exhibition will be complemented by a series of Multiplayer events as described here above.

Your participation

When you responded to the call 4 artist, you were asked to describe an idea or a complete project. For some of you who attended the course, you had a chance to discuss your project with the teacher and possibly clarify or enrich your ideas, and propose its implementation with students. Such projects, should they arrive at a final point, will be integrated in the Multiplayer program during the 2022 year. Your participation to Multiplayer is thus by default, and you have nothing more to do than work on your project with the students.

You are also invited to be part of the group of artists who will develop collectively the AI Habbitville interactive installation as described above. To do so, would you please drop an email (Thibaud LATOUR <thibaud.latour@ext.uni.lu) so that we can engage in a more detailed conversation about the project and the contribution you expect to provide.