5 Featured Artists: Questioning the Status Quo of our evolving digital world
In today's digital age, data, surveillance, and artificial intelligence have become integral to security, business and daily life. This has changed the way society interacts and inadvertently, reshapes our future. This is why it is important to critically examine these phenomena - from questioning the power structures inherent in technology to exploring information manipulation and surveillance's impact.
Considering datafication from an artistic standpoint serves as a means to initiate discussions about digital technology, an area currently dominated by corporate and policy entities. Artists' ideas, prototypes, artworks, and campaigns introduce fresh outlooks on the exploration of how technology intersects with society.
In this blogpost, we will present five (5) artists that challenge us to reconsider the ever-changing world around us. These artists, often referred to as digital artists, new media artists, or media artists, are at the forefront of incorporating technology into their artistic practices. At the same time, they contemplate the broader implications this digital integration has on society. Their work represents an artistic approach that not only embraces technology but also aims to spark meaningful reflections on how it influences our world.
TREVOR PAGLEN
An artist and geographer, explores the intersection of art, surveillance, and technology. His works investigate the hidden infrastructures and systems that shape our world. In his work, the "Machine Visions" series, which include ImageNet Roulette; Image Operations and They took the Faces… for example, he drew attention to the things that go wrong when artificial intelligence models are trained on problematic training data. Through this, he is able to unveil the hidden biases and infrastructures of power, that influence the AI algorithms which shape our digital experiences.
MOREHSHIN ALLAHYARI (Persian: موره شین اللهیاری)
Is an Iranian-Kurdish artist based in New York who refigures myth and history using 3D simulation, film, sculpture, and digital fabrication. Using archival practises and storytelling, her work knits together intricate counter narratives against the pervasive impact of Western technical colonialism as it relates to the Middle East and North Africa. Her work in this field is fully documented in “Digital Colonialism (2016-2019).” She created the 3d Addtivist [sic] Cookbook and Manifesto in collaboration with Daniel Rourke and Andrea Young- as a call to push Additivist (a fusion of additive and activism) technologies to their absolute limits and beyond into the realm of the speculative, the provocative and the weird.
STEPHANIE DINKINS
Is a transmedia artist who creates experiences that spark dialog about race, gender, aging, and our future histories. Her work in AI, like “conversations with Bina48” and other mediums (Secret Garden) uses emerging technologies and social collaboration to work toward technological ecosystems based on care and social equity. Dinkins' experiences with and explorations of artificial intelligence have led to a deep interest in how algorithmic systems impact communities of colour in particular and all of our futures more generally.
PAOLO CIRIO
An Italian artist known for his thought-provoking works that tackle themes of privacy, surveillance, and identity. His projects, such as "Capture" and "Face to Facebook," raise questions about data privacy and the commercialization of personal information respectively. By exposing the loopholes in the surveillance economy, thus, revealing the extensive network of data brokers who profit from individuals' personal information. With "Street Ghosts," he highlights the presence of individuals captured by Google Street View, raising concerns about public surveillance and the impact on society’s collective memory.
ADAM HARVEY
A multidisciplinary artist, examines the visual and technological aspects of surveillance. His projects, like "CV Dazzle" and "Stealth Wear," explore how camouflage and counter-surveillance fashion can challenge the omnipresence of surveillance systems and offer alternative modes of resistance.
These artists defy the status quo through their distinctive approaches and provide new perspectives on the intricate relationship between data, AI, surveillance and society. By illuminating these pressing issues, they compel us to reflect, question, and engage in a broader conversation about the power structures embedded in our increasingly digitized world and their implications on our anonymity, equality and autonomy.
We selected these artists because they significantly broadened the scope of topics addressed in this domain, transcending Western issues and boundaries. By highlighting these voices through DAG we try to create a future space which moves beyond a Western-centric viewpoint and re-imagine the future with technology in a more inclusive way.