Mushroom-DJs, Strong AI & Climate Change: Connecting the Dots with Artistic Research (38c3)

The exploratory nature of artistic research can aide in the production of knowledge. Sometimes, this takes a detour through music-making mushrooms and making moonshine, sometimes it deals with societal reverberations of AI usage or how lithium extraction affects the planet. This talk gives an insight on how we do technology-assisted artistic research at ZKM | Hertzlab, the artistic research & development department of the Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe. Artistic research takes the exploratory impulse of art and combines it with the wish for knowing the world that characterizes scientific research. It is neither science communication, nor purely artistic practice - it is located somewhere in between. As a field of its own, artistic research is still relatively young; at ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, we explore what this means in the context of one of Europe's oldest media art institutions. Our six themes - lifecycles, connect, a common(s) world, ai-lab, post-human world, fellow futures - guide us in what we hope is a contribution to larger discourses from the point of view of art. With examples and projects, this talk will illuminate artistic research practices, its benefits and challenges and how having a hacker mindset is the first step into becoming an artistic researcher. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 about this event: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2024/hub/event/mushroom-djs-strong-ai-climate-change-connecting-the-dots-with-artistic-research/