[ISEA2019] Paper: Ardavan Bidgoli, Eunsu Kang & Daniel Cardoso Llach — Machinic Surrogates: Human-Machine Relationships in Computational Creativity

Abstract

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Co-creation, Collaboration, Human-Machine Interaction, Computational Creativity, Art, Design, Machinic Surrogacy, AI-enabled Tools

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and its sub-branch machine learning (ML) promise machines that go beyond the boundaries of automation and behave autonomously. Applications of these machines in creative practices such as art and design entail relationships between users and machines that have been described as a form of “collaboration” or “co-creation” between computational and human agents [1, 2]. This paper uses examples from art and design to argue that this frame is incomplete as it fails to acknowledge the socio-technical nature of AI systems, and the different human agencies involved in their design, implementation, and operation. Situating applications of AI-enabled tools in creative practices in a spectrum between automation and autonomy, this paper distinguishes different kinds of human engagement elicited by systems deemed “automated” or “autonomous.” Reviewing models of artistic collaboration during the late 20th century, it suggests that collaboration is at the core of these artistic practices. We build upon the growing literature of machine learning and art to look for the human agencies inscribed in works of “computational creativity”, and expand the “co-creation” frame to incorporate emerging forms of human-human collaboration mediated through technical artifacts such as algorithms and data.

  • Ardavan Bidgoli is a Ph.D. candidate in Computational Design at the School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University, USA. His research is focused on machine learning generative models and human-machine co-creation in creative practices. He is the robotics fellow at the Computational Design lab (Code Lab) and routinely contributes to the architectural robotic research at the Design Fabrication lab (dFab) where he teaches Introduction to Architectural Robotics. His research has been published and presented in ACADIA, CAADRIA, RobArch, and NeurIPS. He had been collaborating with Bentley Systems as well as Autodesk’s OCTO team at Pier 9 and BUILD space facilities. Ardavan has a Bachelor of Architecture and a Master of Architecture from the University of Tehran, Iran, and a Master of Architecture in Design Computing from The Pennsylvania State University.
  • Dr. Eunsu Kang is a Korean media artist who creates interactive audiovisual installations and AI artworks. Her current research is focused on creative AI and artistic expressions generated by Machine Learning algorithms. Creating interdisciplinary projects, her signature has been the seamless integration of art disciplines and innovative techniques. Her work has been invited to numerous places around the world including Korea, Japan, China, Switzerland, Sweden, France, Germany, and the US. All ten of her solo shows, consisting of individual or collaborative projects, were invited or awarded. She has won the Korean National Grant for Arts three times. Her researches have been presented at prestigious conferences including ACM, ICMC, ISEA, and NeurIPS. Kang earned her Ph.D. in Digital Arts and Experimental Media from DXARTS at the University of Washington, USA. She received an MA in Media Arts and Technology from UCSB and an MFA from the Ewha Womans University (Seoul, South Korea). She had been a tenured art professor at the University of Akron for nine years and is currently a Visiting Professor of Art and Machine Learning at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.
  • Dr. Daniel Cardoso Llach is Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, USA, where he teaches architecture, directs the Master of Science in Computational Design, and co-directs the Code Lab, a multidisciplinary laboratory focusing on critically exploring design technologies. He is the author of Builders of the Vision: Software and the Imagination of Design (Routledge), which identifies and documents the theories of design emerging from postwar technology projects at MIT, and traces critically their architectural repercussions. He is a Graham Foundation grantee and the curator of a recent exhibition on the history and possible futures of computational design. His writings have been published in journals including Design Issues, Architectural Research Quarterly (ARQ), and Thresholds, among others, and in several edited collections, including The Active Image: Architecture and Engineering in the Age of Modeling (Springer 2017) and the forthcoming DigitalSTS: A Handbook and a Fieldguide (Princeton 2019). Daniel routinely lectures and teaches workshops around the world. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, and a Ph.D. and MS (with honors) in Design and Computation from MIT. He has also been a research fellow at Leuphana (MECS), Germany, and a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Full text (PDF) p. 153-159