CuratorWork

Alfredo Cramerotti

Art + Tech Director, Curator, Writer, Publisher

Office address: mm:museum [Media Majlis] @ Northwestern Qatar, Education City, Doha, Qatar
 - CuratorWork / CuratorView is an artsphere website

Critical Issues in Media — AI, Power, and the Future of Artistic Practice. Lecture by Auronda Scalera & Dr. Alfredo Cramerotti for Kinetic Imaging @ VCUArts Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar

lecture, presentation, talk, debate
Artist:
© CuratorWork / © CuratorView / © Alfredo Cramerotti [2024]

Overview of the talk:

  1. How AI technologies impact artistic production, distribution, and exhibition-making

  2. Case studies from our curatorial practice using advanced technologies

  3. Ethical implications, bias, authorship, environmental cost, within the context of art and media

  4. Eventual new models of artistic agency

The lecture develops through four critical enquiries:

PART I: AI REALLY?

AI as Cultural System

  • How datasets encode aesthetics: who decides what images look like?

  • AI-generated art as a “mirror of our archives” (Florencia Bruck) https://www.instagram.com/p/C1IgU4PNsyf/

Implications for Art & Media

  • Shift in role of the artist: author, director, dataset designer

  • Curatorial responsibility: transparency, disclosure, ethics

AI and Global South narratives: underrepresented datasets, aesthetic stereotypes, misidentification
(memes exhibition or Linda Dounia)Linda Dounia Senegalese artist who critiques large foundational AI models (like DALL-E, Midjourney) for their biased depiction of the Global South. She builds her own datasets (of historical buildings, indigenous flora) and uses GANs to generate new imagery.  Example project: Once Upon a Flower:  imagines a future where climate change has killed real flowers, replaced by AI-simulated ones. https://openfuture.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/240328_Your_Art_plus_AI.pdf
https://lindarebeiz.com/

PART II: CURATORIAL PRACTICE

Case studies from our practice that connect art + emerging technologies


PART III: THE GCC CONTEXT 

  1. How is AI shaping cultural production in the Gulf?

  2. What does digital sovereignty mean in a region of rapid technological growth?

  3. Can AI amplify regional narratives or does it risk flattening them?

  4. How do we design ethical and sustainable digital futures within the GCC?

PART IV: FUTURE DIRECTIONS & UNRESOLVED QUESTIONS

Emerging points:

  • Post-AI aesthetics: when humans emulate machine styles

  • Copyright, royalties, and dataset provenance

  • Emotional AI + affective computing in museums

  • Digital ownership, blockchain, and governance

  • The curator as a “translator” between human and machine cultures