Talk by Andrea Carraro at the Biennial Congress of the IAEA 2024. Majorca, May 8-10
Introduction
SIGN
With the advent of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, two fundamental elements of human work need to be reevaluated: sign and presence.
“Sign” is a concept to be understood in relation to that of drawing (in Italian “disegno”). While pursuing my first degree, in fine arts, I was able to reflect on the difference between designing a stylistic structure (style), and the artistic cipher emerging during the process of creation (sign). The latter occurs irreflexively, and can be associated with handwriting in writing: regardless of content, the form of words is an index of recognizability for those who wrote them (Ingold, 2013). The sign is to be understood as the primary connection between art and human consciousness, not merely images, but communications: “”I was here.”” (Hoel 2022). This index of presence, as a sign of the passage of another human, animal or thing, is lost in the generative processes of AI.
The concept of “”presence”” has experienced renewed scholarly interest since the arrival of virtual reality in our daily lives. Unlike involvement, which is related to content, presence is a formal matter (Slater, Mel, 2003). A reader may be engaged by the content of a book but not feel present; a subject may decide to adopt a willing suspension of disbelief (S.T. Coleridge, 1817) in order to feel present in a virtual reality program. Presence then becomes a malleable, debatable and maneuverable state of being.
If, as Eugenio Barba once told me, “”art is the superfluous that helps man to imagine””, the “”sign”” would be that superfluous that helps man to feel present in the world, a creative presence challenged by new technologies.
The human matrix in the frame of AI Between immersion and extended reality
PRESENCE
The techne becomes the technology.
The hypothesis is that what was being absolved by techne is now being absolved by technology. Not as far as craft and industry are concerned, but in the context of figurative art. Man is thus uprooted from the artistic process and relegated to the project stage.
Content, style, sign
The addition of sign to the pairing of “content” and “style” is necessary in the advent of artificial intelligence. The human presence in the creative act must be made explicit in order to be properly
inserted into the discourse.
Metamorphosis of sign into datum
The emergent matrix of the artistic act, is thus downgraded to a datum. The sign is crushed together with the style to make the artificial generation possible. The stylistic matrix and human presence are two
groupable elements, and in this equality the last, denied in principle by artificial generation, is absent.
Recipient-author
In the parenthesis of great anthropic humiliation, creative entertainment emerges as the main source of interest.
The entertainment field becomes editable, modifiable by the user. Through generative systems, the user is also constantly an author, since he or she modifies and changes the outcome of what he or she sees, in an anti-storytelling.
Author-recipient
The role of the author also interpenetrates that of the user. It is not just a matter of observing one’s own work, or watching over the creative process but of constantly fulfilling the role of the user.
The reason is the annihilation of the process as opposed to the project. Prompting is literally the most essential form of the design phase of the creative act. The latter becomes a series of projects and results.
The author becomes a creator of projects and a user of results, which he oversees and modifies through other projects.
The AI generative “art”
New artistic trends are emerging in the face of generative AI systems, as happened in the 19th century with the rise of photography, which forced artists to abandon naturalistic reproduction of reality and embark on the extraordinary path of modern art. Through deep learning, AI assimilates the forms and syntaxes of universal art, making them available to artists. This is a new condition of the artist, listening to existing art and then reinterpreting it.
Regenerative art
Carraro lab is pioneering “ReGenerative Art,” a novel approach utilizing artificial intelligence to rejuvenate artworks from the past. Unlike conventional methods, this approach emphasizes the importance of
original sources, openly integrating them into the regenerated works. Leveraging vast AI-trained archives, this emerging trend explores AI’s potential to recreate images from historical
Over the AI
CarraroLab’s motto regarding generative systems and machine learning is “over the ai.” Far from being an ontological statement, this maxim is an invitation to change one’s practical positioning. Our conception of
digital humanism sees humans rising above AI, thereby organizing the product of the machine with their own critical thinking. In this, we are developing and patenting various technologies such as “Vidactica,” a
platform that allows us to quickly analyze videos, index them automatically and break them into chapters so that we have a considerable amount of data for comparison.
Immersive Academia
Academia, which is assiduously concerned with the cultural evolutions sweeping society, can arm itself with a practical and theoretical foundation to align with the present. The point of the Immersive
Academia platform, developed by Carraro Lab for universities and master’s courses, is just that.
This 360-degree immersive platform allows students to experience virtual study environments, which use proxemics mnemonics inspired by Cicero’s Art of Memory. Designed as a tool, the platform is
opensource and can be easily modified by students and professors, presenting different instances of artificial intelligence.
PRESENCE
Between immersion and extended reality
From the frame to the sphere From the icon, the painting and the book, in Medieval Europe the relationship between man and art consolidates in the quadrangular frame. This predisposition
is clear in the progression of media such as photography, film, television, and the Internet, whether enjoyed from a pc or smartphone.
Acclimatization to the quadrangular frame makes it difficult to understand how immersive art was before the picture. From Lascaux to Pompeian paintings, art was often immersively organized in space. The
revolution brought by virtual and augmented reality forces us to rethink art in a 360° sphere.
Presence or engagement
With the consolidation of immersive technologies and virtual reality, research in the field is increasing, causing several studies to resurface on the concept of presence. The latter, differs from engagement, as
the former would be based on sensory perception, while the latter on content.
Curiosity and trust
An immersive reality that aims to engage the user necessarily runs into functional problems. What is not yet addressed extensively in this area is its ethical weight. Not only on a perceptual level (see concept of presence) but also on a social, professional and cultural one, humans will be involved by the immersive turn of the Web.
This new compendium of technologies, roughly called the “Metaverse,” is a reality that aims to involve man’s aesthetic sphere, his social life, and his professional career.
Aesthetic distance
The many studies on the concept of aesthetic distance, based mainly on the frontal relationship between artwork and viewer, will have to adapt to the new immersive structure of experiencing art.
A good start might be to apply studies of theatrical proxemics to the context of the immersive virtual work. Concepts such as Eugenio Barba’s Spazio fiume can shed light on the new relationships between the 360-degree aesthetic experience and those immersed in it.
Immersiveness
As the term suggests, immersiveness indicates a degree of aesthetic quality that allows the active immersion of the viewer.
This can be emotional, mental, sensory and at best all these levels together.
Xredulab
One of the contexts where curiosity and trust can virtuously be systematized is education.
It is Carraro LAB’s opinion that minors cannot be exposed to the immersive turn
of the web without the right educational training. XRedulab is a platform we have built
precisely for this: to provide the younger generation with a safe, educational and
opensourcce approach that will galvanize their interest in school by providing them
with softskills in the field of virtual and augmented reality.
Spacetelling
One way to summarize the new immersive technomethodologies is our neologism
“spacetelling.” If it is true that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 1967), then
storytelling must necessarily undertake the metamorphosis that from linear temporal
storytelling moves to spacetelling where space and time are interlaced and the will of
the user becomes somewhat directional.