Most AI-based artists work exclusively in front of their computers. Sougwen Chung is different: they train robots to physically paint in tandem with them on massive canvases. Before they used AI, Chung, who identifies as nonbinary, painted expansive abstract artworks filled with bold, flowing lines. They then trained a neural net on decades of those paintings—and built robots trained on those neural nets to paint with them in real time. When they paint a line, the robots mimic Chung’s line and then extend it outward with new ideas and patterns. “What I’m chasing is that surprise and wonder in that machine translation,” Chung says.
Chung, 38, travels the world, painting with their robots for live audiences. Chung compares their relationship with their robots to that of a musician with their violin. “In some ways, the robotic system is a kinetic instrument that I’m navigating with,” they say.
Multidisciplinary artist Sougwen Chung delves into her unique contributions to the exhibition GEN/GEN: Generative Generations, the evolving discourse on human-machine interconnections and more with Peter Bauman (Monk Antony).
With his art-making software dating back to the 1960s, the programmer and artist paved the way for today’s confluence of art and technology
Is artificial intelligence a tool to be used by humans to creative ends or is it a creative agent in its own right? The late artist and programmer Harold Cohen considered these questions in his 1973 essay ‘Parallel to Perception’ and articulated a position shared by many artists working with AI today: ‘Tools generally serve to extend or to delimit various human functions,’ he wrote, ‘but of all the many tools invented by man only the computer has the power to perform functions which parallel those of the mind itself, and its autonomy is thus not entirely illusory.’ In other words, the computer can play a more independent role in the creative process than, say, a paintbrush or a camera.
Cohen proved this point artistically with his best-known project ‘AARON’, an art-making software he conceived in the late 1960s and developed until his death in 2016. As explored in ‘Harold Cohen: AARON’, a new exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Cohen designed AARON specifically so that the software, and thus the machine running it, could make decisions with as little human input as possible. Today, AARON is known as the earliest example of an art-making AI. Reflecting on AARON’s relative simplicity, in comparison to the AI models used by contemporary artists, can show us how far we have come, but also what has remained constant.
What role, if any, should artificial intelligence play in the world of art and content creation? Prestige asks AI-art experts Alex Israel andSougwen Chung.
As soon as artificial intelligence become easily accessible through the likes of ChatGPT, DALL•E 2 and Midjourney, it began raising endless questions about how humanity can co-exist with the ever-expanding and evolving digital realm. And when it comes to art, the questions become even more pertinent.
Although it can be used as a tool, AI is increasingly being utilised to create end products, which are then sold and credited to the artist using the technology. To what extent can creators claim ownership over these works? Will AI completely take over human artists? Should we fear this technology? To answer these questions, we sought the help of American multimedia artist Alex Israel and Canadian-born Chinese artist and researcher Sougwen Chung.
Two leaders in the field of machine learning assess its progressive potential for art and beyond
For over a decade, Mick Grierson has been leading research into creative applications of AI. As a co-founder of the Creative Computing Institute, he has helped to drive inclusive approaches to a range of fields: from creative coding to machine learning, and from sensing to software. In that time, Luba Elliott has become an essential curator in the field of creative AI, a term which Grierson first attributes to Elliott. At a moment when artists are rewiring the digital systems that envelop society, RCS invited them to discuss AI’s trajectory as a creative tool.
A pioneer in the realm of human-machine collaboration, Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher Sougwen Chung has long explored the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine to delve into the dynamics between humans, AI systems, and robotics.
“My work, at its simplest level, is about exploring the contradictions that stem from not fitting neatly into one category,” Sougwen Chung, who identifies as nonbinary, said on Sunday in Dubai, where they accepted a TIME100 Impact Award for their influence on the field of artificial intelligence. “I like to think of [it] as a new hybridity.” Read more: https://time.com/collection/time100-i...
💙 Grateful to the whole team at @TIME for the #TIME100 Impact Award, recognizing individuals who have gone above and beyond to move their industries—and the world—forward in the AI space. I am honored to be one of these four recipients.
It's been a surreal few days, so many reflections and images to share, but first:
I took some time to reflect on the moment for my acceptance speech, excerpted below.
Sougwen Chung
"I’m inspired by Grace Lee Boggs who wrote that these are the times to grow our souls. She believed that creativity is vital in producing the necessary conditions not just for our survival, but for our evolution. Her words, and Grace’s life as an Asian-american philosopher and activist, are a testament to hybridity – hybridity of culture and of thought. Her authorship, the works of my peers, and the creative energy of the new generation continue to challenge and inspire me everyday.
I have learned that traditional forms of creativity must shape, but not be replaced by, technological development. That building our own tools and AI systems can help us sit with the existential questions posed by new technologies – A way that fear and hope can be held in the mind at the same time. We’ve observed the damage to our planet done by unchecked technological growth – the damage to our creative industries, too. We need now, more than ever, approaches that foreground hybrid creative innovation to help shape the development of the technology that shapes us, while stewarding what came before.
Sougwen Chung
This award is a spotlight on the meaning made by the artists of today, the artists that came before, and the ones to come. We carry with us the knowledge that exploring the human condition despite the odds, shapes the world in vital and profound ways.
We urge you to move beyond the binary – of thinking and of making and being – and to create the third path with us – To explore the in-between; as a space of imagination and hybridity.
Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-Canadian artist and researcher. Chung is the founder and artistic director of ⇢ SCILICET, a studio exploring human & non-human collaboration.
A former research fellow at MIT’s Media Lab, Sougwen is considered a pioneer in the field of human-machine collaboration – exploring the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the dynamics of humans and systems.
— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.
— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.
— Sougwen 愫君 Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist & (re)searcher based in London / New York / Hong Kong.
