https://alexandragilliams.com Alexandra Gilliams Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:45:57 +0000 https://alexandragilliams.com en https://alexandragilliams.com/Talks Wed, 29 Nov 2023 09:45:57 +0000 Alexandra Gilliams https://alexandragilliams.com/Talks ———TALKS <img width="984" height="1398" width_o="984" height_o="1398" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/4fdc8487c3e8ba5dfa442641b5ad540bace9d5e750f83d2f8aede2ce6547afc1/Capture-decran-2026-09-15-a-14.19.04.png" data-mid="252177226" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/984/i/4fdc8487c3e8ba5dfa442641b5ad540bace9d5e750f83d2f8aede2ce6547afc1/Capture-decran-2026-09-15-a-14.19.04.png" /> Symposium - Dysphoria Mundi: Making and Breaking World Models“Worlding Beyond Representation: Artistic World Models and Planetary Coexistence“ More information here SEPT 2026 PresentationVenice Biennale Sessions - Arsenale &nbsp; Venice, Italy <img width="630" height="354" width_o="630" height_o="354" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/30977f0ea6ad96179a1dbe84e31baf3d5d8e22479d90484271811be54e8801e8/2d3e1294-314c-4dc0-b1ec-5d40294af527.jpg" data-mid="252297925" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/630/i/30977f0ea6ad96179a1dbe84e31baf3d5d8e22479d90484271811be54e8801e8/2d3e1294-314c-4dc0-b1ec-5d40294af527.jpg" /> Conference - Data Worlds“The ‘Myth of the Machine’ in AI Art” More information here SEPT 2026 PresentationTU Dresden University of Technology Dresden, Germany <img width="970" height="1400" width_o="970" height_o="1400" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/19fec0b516f369ad55b1da60bb96e378365c23bcdb790aabdb4b0cdb6b67389d/Capture-decran-2026-09-01-a-17.06.33.png" data-mid="251736586" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/970/i/19fec0b516f369ad55b1da60bb96e378365c23bcdb790aabdb4b0cdb6b67389d/Capture-decran-2026-09-01-a-17.06.33.png" /> Workshop - The Latent Spaces of Culture:&nbsp;The Aesthetics, Epistemology, and Politics of AI“Psychopolitics in Latent Space: On Trevor Paglen’s Cyclops“ More information here SEPT 2026 PresentationUC Berkeley Berkeley, CA, USA <img width="910" height="1214" width_o="910" height_o="1214" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ffd131afb0349e134d6f0378fc0071776624aa9dc1526e0cfb8d33dcbf214e83/Capture-decran-2026-07-02-a-13.54.47.png" data-mid="250018549" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/910/i/ffd131afb0349e134d6f0378fc0071776624aa9dc1526e0cfb8d33dcbf214e83/Capture-decran-2026-07-02-a-13.54.47.png" /> Panel - « Le grand pillage ou la juste source&nbsp;? Le droit de suite à l’ère du scraping » The Great Plunder or Fair Use? Copyright in the Age of Scraping More information here JULY 2026 Panel DiscussionL’Archevêché by Fisheye Magazine Les rencontres d’Arles Photography Festival <img width="2339" height="3307" width_o="2339" height_o="3307" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/f181ca8fc8705b8b943898fbd0ad941f2c99e73538f73189a548dafa0d00846d/Seeing-with-Machine-Locandina.jpg" data-mid="246644672" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/f181ca8fc8705b8b943898fbd0ad941f2c99e73538f73189a548dafa0d00846d/Seeing-with-Machine-Locandina.jpg" /> Symposium - Seeing With Machines: Aesthetics, Education and Semiotics of AI Images “AI Psychopolitics: Deception as Method in Contemporary Art“ MAY 2026 Presentation University of Modena and Reggio Emilia Palazzo Baroni Reggio Emilia, Italy <img width="2048" height="1479" width_o="2048" height_o="1479" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62af9a937f5a62062977d1f6371d0e5de949566ff437f845c963deeebd0e1c68/1762935070742.jpg" data-mid="245065850" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/62af9a937f5a62062977d1f6371d0e5de949566ff437f845c963deeebd0e1c68/1762935070742.jpg" /> Annual Conference of theInstitute for European Studies&nbsp; Reflecting on Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Issues, Imaginaries, and Socio-Economic Impacts NOV 2025 Presentation Paris 8 Palais de Chaillot, Paris <img width="2000" height="1333" width_o="2000" height_o="1333" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/aa12d9675d2e19a1ce7f453859b2ce36a43979a8e9d7f89b4ef7ecbe1512c444/Schaufler_KI-115-von-291.jpg" data-mid="246492056" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/aa12d9675d2e19a1ce7f453859b2ce36a43979a8e9d7f89b4ef7ecbe1512c444/Schaufler_KI-115-von-291.jpg" /> Symposium - Unpacking Generativity: Epistemology, Politics, and Aesthetics of Generative AI Systems “Artificial Optics: The ‘Myth of the Machine’ in AI Art” OCT 2025 PresentationTU Dresden Dresden, Germany <img width="1744" height="1154" width_o="1744" height_o="1154" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/de900ed7185e4cd8794d9e74024b40b07345ee09e1408db7c0870babcf0d1d0a/Capture-decran-2025-09-23-a-18.52.39.png" data-mid="238705028" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/de900ed7185e4cd8794d9e74024b40b07345ee09e1408db7c0870babcf0d1d0a/Capture-decran-2025-09-23-a-18.52.39.png" /> Symposium - Art, Artificial Intelligence, and Industry “AI and the Phantasmagoric Dispositif in Contemporary Art” SEPT 2025 Presentation5th Annual Printmaking Biennale Yerevan, Armenia <img width="2808" height="1462" width_o="2808" height_o="1462" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/72c8ad788eea7ac13281aa1a0ace810af0705b57683a5bade829674a0fe31786/Capture-decran-2025-07-23-a-23.02.50.png" data-mid="236210612" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/72c8ad788eea7ac13281aa1a0ace810af0705b57683a5bade829674a0fe31786/Capture-decran-2025-07-23-a-23.02.50.png" /> Symposium - Is Generative AI Creative? “Artificial Optics: AI Art as Phantasmagoric Spectacle” Watch here... JULY 2025 PresentationInternational Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) Trieste, Italy <img width="768" height="1024" width_o="768" height_o="1024" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a05c1674884f36c966f1eaf01a47658a2886d331bf83108bb889da30933cdca0/00409D9C-27E5-4300-8F8C-1AEF82116F2F_1_105_c.jpeg" data-mid="238706099" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/768/i/a05c1674884f36c966f1eaf01a47658a2886d331bf83108bb889da30933cdca0/00409D9C-27E5-4300-8F8C-1AEF82116F2F_1_105_c.jpeg" /> Conference on ethics and aesthetics of artificial images (EA-AI 2025)The EA-AI 2025 conference strives to unite theoretical and practical perspectives on AI-generated images, while bringing together ethical and aesthetic consideration. Read more... MAY 2025 PresentationUniversità Iuav di Venezia Venice, Italy <img width="1801" height="1801" width_o="1801" height_o="1801" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b88eb3eaebe2d87160d91960e751eb5997b06862461e724243137b4e26d13e48/CONF_1_2024_25.png" data-mid="217818230" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b88eb3eaebe2d87160d91960e751eb5997b06862461e724243137b4e26d13e48/CONF_1_2024_25.png" /> Artificial Optics: Contemporary Art and the Sociotechnical Imaginary of AIA new trend appears to be occurring with AI artists and exhibitions. Often directly financed by Silicon Valley companies through residencies, grants or partnerships, these artists and exhibitions are contributing to the construction of a new paradigm: what art and technology scholar Joanna Zylinska refers to as "platform art" in "AI Art: Machine Visions and Warped Dreams”. I broaden her 2020 study by looking at newer aesthetic patterns that are emerging in what I argue is phantasmagoric: immersive, hypnotic, seductive, terrifying, and sometimes even giving off the impression of the ethereal, sacred and divine. Artists can deconstruct dominant, misleading narratives around AI innovation and look to the technology’s potential for positive outcomes. Instead, these artworks gloss over the power structures behind the development and deployment of these technologies and ultimately add to the ominous shadow being cast over the technology’s hidden functionalities, biases, underlying histories and Silicon Valley ideologies. SEPT 2024 PresentationL’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) Paris, France <img width="1184" height="1677" width_o="1184" height_o="1677" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3101af48ac22db37b5579335961e40ea523db6ba4ecfa19235c8dad3e1532993/68607204-f47b-42bd-b186-55ca0bd6d867.JPG" data-mid="199943326" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/3101af48ac22db37b5579335961e40ea523db6ba4ecfa19235c8dad3e1532993/68607204-f47b-42bd-b186-55ca0bd6d867.JPG" /> Photography and Artificial Intelligence: New Perspectives for Photographic CreationThe status of photography is evolving and artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in this creative transformation. During Fabien Ducrot's artistic residency, the Musée Départemental Albert-Kahn organized a roundtable discussion dedicated to the issues surrounding image-making and generative algorithms. Read more... DEC 2023 Roundtable Discussion with Fabien Ducrot &amp; Marion Carré&nbsp; Musée Albert-Kahn Paris, France https://alexandragilliams.com/Essays Sat, 29 Jan 2022 15:25:56 +0000 Alexandra Gilliams https://alexandragilliams.com/Essays ———ESSAYS <img width="640" height="899" width_o="640" height_o="899" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/95a5abf37fed5b2764609bc4ec50218f1f09048d03f466a3f6e0ac0829ecadec/EQCIKPag.jpg" data-mid="248538776" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/640/i/95a5abf37fed5b2764609bc4ec50218f1f09048d03f466a3f6e0ac0829ecadec/EQCIKPag.jpg" /> Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Peace Core (sphere), 2024, in collaboration with Annika Kuhlmann; Installation view: ‘Christopher Kulendra Thomas: Safe Zone’, FACT, Liverpool, 2025. Courtesy the artist. Photo credit: Andrea Rossetti Peace Core as Psychopolitical Interface In multiple works by Christopher Kulendran Thomas, subtle influencing is used as an aesthetic device. His work elicits controlled hallucinations through video installations, leaving you unsure if you are being lured in a certain direction, your pov steered and predicted for you. Embodied reality becomes, in a certain sense, a reflectionof the informational environment shaping the collective pov. Can we trust our senses if institutions of power structure what is seen and felt? JUNE 2026 Silicity ProtcolsZine <img width="1446" height="812" width_o="1446" height_o="812" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/c27ac5a64f670681f5a4fa887c8cd9e8e9e0f78a5bfe729e089960d4bfa21910/Capture-decran-2024-09-10-a-10.55.33.png" data-mid="217808201" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/c27ac5a64f670681f5a4fa887c8cd9e8e9e0f78a5bfe729e089960d4bfa21910/Capture-decran-2024-09-10-a-10.55.33.png" /> <img width="1456" height="821" width_o="1456" height_o="821" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7c9fcd6c3959de804e3a3e4668067611c6f2fccf35a9eb0eef76b330115ed388/4f06709d-9b1c-49f0-9a92-e1954e8d12e7_2276x1284.jpeg" data-mid="217808176" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7c9fcd6c3959de804e3a3e4668067611c6f2fccf35a9eb0eef76b330115ed388/4f06709d-9b1c-49f0-9a92-e1954e8d12e7_2276x1284.jpeg" />Stills from Ana Min Wein (Where am I From?) by Nouf Aljowaysir Enduring AI Power Structures: Nuance and System Fragility Current capabilities in training neural networks are streamlined for Western and capitalist demands—profit, consumption, production, speed, efficiency, perfection. How else, outside of what we are being administered by tech giants, the media, and the West, could they be opened up and used? What stories are at risk of being lost? How might cultural erasure be perpetuated by these technologies? Read more on Do Not Research... SEPT 2024 Do Not ResearchBook + Web <img width="2895" height="3863" width_o="2895" height_o="3863" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/8b30b46f6192925317b08d9562bb4b7a4e0471b05e5f29781131b37b84bd4238/Neo_Rising_Polansky_gallery_ph_Jan_Kolsky_15.jpg" data-mid="156233144" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/8b30b46f6192925317b08d9562bb4b7a4e0471b05e5f29781131b37b84bd4238/Neo_Rising_Polansky_gallery_ph_Jan_Kolsky_15.jpg" />Floryan Varennes, Matriarche (detail), 2022, Muzzles, Medical tubes, Medical PVC vinyl, Stainless steel fasteners, rings, rivets Medical instruments, 160 x 160 cm Floryan Varennes: Allegory for a More Sensitive Future Speculating on futures that bypass the portrayal of forcibly utopian or dystopian outcomes, Floryan Varennes instead chooses to remain a realist. Both an artist and medieval historian, he looks to protection systems and ancestral remedies from the Middle Ages, as well as contemporary institutional care and science fiction. His use of this historical continuum allows him to focus on different facets of the term care and how these sensibilities could potentially improve the body, mind, and society. Learning from these themes and looking through them as if they were lenses, he peers squarely into the face of the world as it is today, absorbing and critiquing its problems as well as its beauty. Societal realities and challenges such as queer and gender politics, bioethics, ecology, modern romance, and war all rest at the core of his sculptures, videos, and installations. Read more on XIBT... OCT 2022 XIBT MagazinePrint + Web <img width="550" height="550" width_o="550" height_o="550" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/0175909934aa88e82837d7df4823e555b70414ea006fd4e7805c14ca94c9796b/sf14-tt-width-550-height-550-bgcolor-ffffff-lazyload-1.jpg" data-mid="131986935" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/550/i/0175909934aa88e82837d7df4823e555b70414ea006fd4e7805c14ca94c9796b/sf14-tt-width-550-height-550-bgcolor-ffffff-lazyload-1.jpg" /> Samuel Fosso, Autoportrait Série « 70’s Lifestyle », 1975-78© Samuel Fosso. Courtesy Jean-Marc Patras / Paris Profile: Samuel Fosso Samuel Fosso opened his first photography studio when he was only thirteen years old in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. At this point, he had already completed a six month apprenticeship where he learned how to use a camera, as well as develop and print photographs himself. He took pictures of clients during the day and began experimenting with extra film he had leftover after closing time. Turning the room into a one man show, Fosso made his studio a safe space where he would playfully create and explore different identities for himself. Read more on XIBT... DEC 2021 XIBT MagazinePrint + Web <img width="579" height="470" width_o="579" height_o="470" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/853b7479632ace871c82dd3dec4023810f8ee13755ad2440050e485f430f721a/Gorjus-1989-Sally-Mann-Gelatin-Silver-print.-Sayra-and-Neil-Meyerhoff.--Sally-Mann.jpg" data-mid="131845085" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/579/i/853b7479632ace871c82dd3dec4023810f8ee13755ad2440050e485f430f721a/Gorjus-1989-Sally-Mann-Gelatin-Silver-print.-Sayra-and-Neil-Meyerhoff.--Sally-Mann.jpg" /> Gorjus, 1989, Gelatin Silver print. Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff. © Sally Mann Sally Mann: The Treachery of Memory There are aspects of memories that we choose to remember, imagining small details that weren’t actually there, or bits that never really occurred, and perhaps now we rely too much on photography to help us make these moments more clear. Sally Mann (American, b. 1951) has expressed how looking at her photographs has not helped her to remember moments in her life, but how photography instead “impoverishes” the memory. She described this as the treachery of memory, and she has captured it notably through the inevitability of growth and mortality. Read more on XIBT... Read more on ARTPIL... APR 2020 XIBT Magazine ARTPIL Print + Web <img width="1500" height="2239" width_o="1500" height_o="2239" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/a653d30a64d079fa671dafb78a8221746be1e3af24f907aadce7443d122b1a18/ren-hang-web-7.jpg" data-mid="131845086" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/a653d30a64d079fa671dafb78a8221746be1e3af24f907aadce7443d122b1a18/ren-hang-web-7.jpg" /> Untitled, 2016, 100 x 67 cm © Courtesy of Estate of Ren Hang and stieglitz19 Profile:&nbsp;Ren Hang Even Ren Hang’s most unapologetically explicit photographs can be read as a straightforward portrayal of the physical because according to Hang, sex and sexuality are a “part of a normal, healthy life, just like eating and sleeping.” Vibrant colors seep from images of men and women who have been caught and illuminated by his sharp flash. When Hang allows us to see the faces of his subjects, their gaze locks tightly onto yours, leaving you with hardly any will to look away. Read more... MAY 2021 XIBT Magazine Print + Web <img width="750" height="471" width_o="750" height_o="471" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/62f56648189209a0021a8a4428544ebec1f6da5b390a65fd58561f5a470c1432/Josef-Koudelka-Invasion-1968-5.jpg" data-mid="131845084" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/62f56648189209a0021a8a4428544ebec1f6da5b390a65fd58561f5a470c1432/Josef-Koudelka-Invasion-1968-5.jpg" />Josef Koudelka / Magnum Photos Koudelka: Invasion 1968 On August 20, 1968, a Czech theater photographer named Josef Koudelka took to the streets to document the chaos unfolding on his doorstop: some 250,000 soldiers from five Warsaw Pact countries were sent by leaders in Moscow to destroy the “Prague Spring.” Koudelka reflected in the book Magnum Stories (Phaidon, 2014) that intuitively, he knew the invasion would be an important event for him to remember. “It was my country,” he recounted; the invasion had directly concerned his life. He stepped outside and thrust himself into the frenzy, documenting as a way to place memory onto film, and under strict Soviet control, this spontaneity could have cost him his life. Read more... NOV 2018 ARTPIL Web <img width="750" height="750" width_o="750" height_o="750" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/bb70508f0f636d72ede6804bc6248a2012af09dd4fbc0564a7b1301ddd8abe7a/Jacques-Henri-Lartigue-Memory-of-Colors-5.jpg" data-mid="131845804" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/750/i/bb70508f0f636d72ede6804bc6248a2012af09dd4fbc0564a7b1301ddd8abe7a/Jacques-Henri-Lartigue-Memory-of-Colors-5.jpg" /> Jacques Henri Lartigue Jacques Henri Lartigue: Life in Color Born into an elite family in France, Jacques Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) began photographing the world around him on a small glass plate camera at the age of 8. With his privileged upbringing, Lartigue was given the opportunity to photograph his family and friends practicing popular sports and experimenting with the new innovations of the time, such as homemade gliders and racing cars. Although the jovial black and white photographs of his subjects are some of his most recognizable, his use of the autochrome color process created a vibrant new atmosphere for his subject matter. Lartigue’s desire in 1911-1927 to venture into color photography draws from an interest in experimenting with new photographic processes as well as in his practice of painting. Read more... SEPT 2018 ARTPILWeb