Scary Corners, Neural Videogames and Surrealist Nightmares
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things I found
1. Corners are scary
Cornerfolk is a single-episode analog horror short movie. It tells the story of a man who believes strange entities are using his home as a sort of nexus when passing through dimensions. Fascinating idea and cool video.
2. A neural network that mimics a video game
Ollin Boer Bohan made an interesting experiment involving videogames and AI: “I made a playable Pokémon overworld. It looks (mostly) like a normal video game, and you can try it in your web browser here. Although this looks like a video game, I did not write any game code. This program is actually a neural network mimicking a video game.”
3. Something called the internet
“Kate Bellingham reports that an exciting new interconnected world – a world where every word ever written, every picture ever painted and ever film ever shot will be at our fingertips – is tantalisingly close. The information superhighway will be a high-capacity digital communication network, which in time could revolutionise the way we shop, socialise and work”.
Originally broadcasted 29 April, 1994 on BBC
4. AI for detecting cluster munitions
VFRAME is an organization that researches and develops state-of-the-art computer vision technologies for human rights research and conflict zone monitoring. It is developed and maintained by Adam Harvey in Berlin with contributions from Jules LaPlace, Josh Evans, and a growing list of collaborators. During the winter/spring of 2022 VFRAME and T4T partnered to develop a 3D model of the 9N235 submunition that has frequently appeared in the war in Ukraine. This model is being used to create synthetic training data for object detection algorithms and high-accuracy 3D printed replicas for benchmarking purposes.
5. Everyone lives out a fairytale as a template script
Artist Ian Cheng looks at the way that the work of psychiatrist Eric Berne changed the way that he thought about human personality when it came to creating the AI simulations that inhabit his work. On Elephant: “Obviously we take different paths, but Berne believed that everyone lives out a fairytale as a template script that they’ve cast themselves into with the help of their parents. Most people aren’t satisfied with the script that they’re unconsciously barreling down. It might be a mismatch: maybe your parents had old fashioned values; maybe the culture you grew up in radically shifted in your teens, which alters the relevance of your life script.”
6. The Follower
Dries Depoorter‘s “The Follower” project combines AI, open access cameras, and influencers to show behind the scenes of viral shots—without them knowing.
7. Passage a l’acte
I don’t know how it’s possible that I didn’t come across this masterpiece before. Passage a l’acte, by Martin Arnold (1993) “makes a simple breakfast scene from To Kill a Mockingbird look like a surrealist nightmare“.
new entries on my bookshelf
David J. Chalmers, Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, 2022
Susanna Clarke, Piranesi, 2021
Francesco D’Abbraccio e Andrea Facchetti (a cura di), AI & Conflicts. Volume 1, 2021
Cecilia Guida e Roberto Pinto (a cura di), Le relazioni oltre le immagini, 2022
Katy Hessel, The Story of Art without Men, 2022
John Roberts, Art, Misuse and Technology, 2022
Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, 2008
Mattia Salvia, Interregno, 2022
Chris Stedman, IRL: Finding Realness, Meaning, and Belonging in Our Digital Lives, 2020
Caterina Tomeo e Claudia Attimonelli (a cura di), L’elettronica è donna, 2022
things I did recently
On October 25th I took part in a conversation organized by Blitz Valletta. We presented “Here’s how I did not see what you wanted me to see” (2022), a brand new online artwork by Matthew Attard, commissioned by Blitz in the context of the "Open" Digital Residency program. Click here to see the project or here to see the video.
On October 14th, I gave a talk in the context of the conference “No(u)s mèmes”, CNAM, Paris, Salle des textiles, Paris. The title of my paper was “The era of non-sense. Weirdness, absurdism and surrealism in internet memes”.
On October 8th, I was in Pisa at the Internet Festival, to present Vincenzo Susca’s book, Tecnomagia (Mimesis, 2022). The conversation was live streamed and you can watch it here.
On September 30th I went to Milan for Artevisione, an interesting series of events organized by Care/of. I took part in a roundtable titled “Beyond Data”, moderated by Claudia D’Alonzo.
On September 22nd I made this fun webinar on the use of memes in class: Formazione su Misura - Meme culture a scuola: le potenzialità didattiche dei meme.
A fews excerpts from Memestetica (NERO Editions) came out in German in this cool magazine called Montage AV. The theme of the issue is "Messy Images."
exciting news!
Last week I signed a book contract 📖. I’m writing a new essay that will be out for Nero NOT next year. Also, a brand new Italian edition of Memestetica will be available in January, with an extra chapter and a preface! The English edition will be also out in 2023.
upcoming events
November 4th: La rivoluzione algoritmica dell'arte - online talk
November 17th: Il rettangolo elettrico - Bookcity @ NABA, Milano
November 18th: Memestetica @ Marx Now 2.0 - Che Guevara, Roma
November 25th: Ammasso by NOT, Roma (more info soon)
December 6th: Media, arte, pubblici nell'ecosistema digitale, Università degli Studi di Catania
the great wall of memes updates
The Great Wall of Memes is a research project in the form of a visual archive. I started it in 2012 and it’s the place where I collect images and memes that feel relevant. Click here to see the latest uploads
P.S. I WANT THIS SWEATER
That’s all for now! Feel free to send me an email or leave a comment.