In an era marked by rapid advancements in technology, artists are increasingly becoming trailblazers at the intersection of creativity and innovation. While the future has always held uncertainty for the arts, today’s challenges — from the rise of artificial intelligence to global instability — demand that artists reimagine their work in new and dynamic ways.
“Sometimes it’s concern or fright of technology and where it can lead us,” said Knight Foundation’s Director of Arts Jennifer Farah during a roundtable discussion at Catalyst: Digital Transformation in the Arts, a forum held in December 2023. “But it seems that the technology has shaped you guys, and you shaped the technology as well.”
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For transdisciplinary artist and Guggenheim Award recipient Stephanie Dinkins, it was a chance encounter with AI that spurred her exploration into the possibilities of technology. Dinkins’s ongoing series Conversations with Bina48, where she engages in dialogue with a social robot on topics ranging from ancestry to ethics, is a thought-provoking meditation on how technology can shape our understanding of identity and existence. “I decided on the idea of nurturing the technology . . . to be in the world that I would like to live in, not just the world that we participate in,” she explains. “I’m talking about crafting a world, and that’s important in tech.”
This sentiment is echoed by artists like Dr. Madeline Gannon, often referred to as the “Robot Whisperer.” Gannon views her work with autonomous machines as more of a partnership than a top-down process. “I know exactly what they’re supposed to do, and yet because I give them autonomy and agency, they don’t always listen,” she says. “It’s more of a conversation. That’s an engaging model for how to interact with technology in the future. When we don’t have direct control, we need to have a direct connection.”
Knight Foundation
For Roddy Schrock, arts organizer and executive director of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, it’s crucial to slow down and take stock of where we are. “There’s so much that’s happening at this moment,” he reflects. “If we were to actually give ourselves the time to understand, we’d have a much better sense of what the future could be, rather than what it seems to be racing toward.”
Artists working with emerging technologies see their work not as final products, but as pieces of an evolving conversation. They view the intersection of art and technology as an opportunity to craft something meaningful out of the unknown. It’s about using tech as another tool in the creative process, much like a painter uses color on a canvas. The possibilities are only limited by the artist’s imagination.
Knight Foundation
While there are understandable concerns about where technology is headed, artists like Dinkins, Gannon, and Schrock envision a world where creativity bridges the gap between humans and machines, offering hope for a more thoughtful and interconnected future.
As Dr. Safiya Noble, UCLA professor and co-founder of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, points out, “The greatest antidote to technology’s dehumanization is art. That’s what artists do. They are the truth-tellers. They touch us in the heart and in the mind. That means [they] are the people who are going to save us.”
These artists are doing more than merely reacting to the technological shifts of today; they are actively shaping what tomorrow looks like. Their work reminds us that even in a world increasingly defined by algorithms and data, there remains space for human creativity and connection.
