by PROMOTING THE HUMAN: A 3-DAY FESTIVAL FOR A 3-YEAR-OLD PROJECT
From 2020 to 2023, scientific and artistic collaboration drive the human proposes and creates seven tangible prototypes that respond to our current planetary scenarios. This year saw the second gathering on this long journey, with a series of interactive installations, screenings, workshops and thought-provoking performances enlivening the Silent Green culture venue in Berlin.
Last October, Driving the Human revealed 21 visions for eco-social renewal proposing new ways of relating to each other and to what surrounds us. Of these, only seven were chosen and they were presented in the old crematorium building in Berlin dating back to 1900. Each visitor was invited and encouraged to curate his own experience exploring the connections between technology and nature. AI and circular economy, as well as new production methods, such as indigenous know-how and bacterial and interplanetary perspectives. designboom attended the three-day festival for the second time following the growth of projects and the evolution of concepts. The final seven prototypes materialize in a variety of ways, from walkway installations, designed objects, and architectural models to interactive games, video works, and performances.
image ©Camille Blak | Driving The Human three-day festival at Silent Green in Berlin, 2022
video ©designboom
Do AIs dream of climate chaos?
Do AIs Dream of Climate Chaos by Iris Qu 曲晓宇 explores the potential interconnection between AI and climate change fields. With the code as the main means, the Chinese artist, technologist and programmer investigate a future where humans, ecosystems and machines live together in harmony.
Do AIs dream of climate chaos? speculates a future where algorithms make decisions based on their own existential needs. Machine learning infrastructures require many human and non-human factors to operate, and such prerequisites can overwhelm human-implemented climate mitigation goals. In this project, speculative AI algorithms calculate competing priorities such as land use, energy, waste, and labor in a simulated ecosystem to optimize system longevity. The project aims to investigate the trend of creating machine learning-enabled solutions and question our tendency to optimize nature. ‘This year we presented a simulation of the ecosystem. The idea here is to put an AI in this super local space, and the machine needs to negotiate with all the living creatures that inhabit it,’ Iris Qu explained.
image ©Camille Blak
image ©designboom
The Winged Backpack: Modern Mythology
Hyeseon Jeong and Seongmin Yuk (see more here Y here) put the lens on a migratory bird by using GPS data and invited participants to create an imaginary narrative narrative.
The Backpack of Wings: Modern Mythology depicts the speculative future scenarios, which are collisions and integrations between a bio-geo tracking technology for wild animals in scientific fields and animism in the East Asian seismic disaster myth. Since ancient times, whenever a natural disaster occurs, people anecdotally report that ‘animals knew in advance’, a belief related to animals as spiritual beings. As telemetry systems evolve, this animistic belief is transformed into data by calculating and analyzing it with biologization in the animal body; In addition, animal behavior data makes it possible to forecast upcoming natural events. ‘Through ‘The Backpack of Wings’ we are interested in finding intersections between the storytelling of animist mythology and scientific research, such as ‘Project Ikarus’ where researchers mount GPS trackers on birds and use the data to predict natural disasters or even prevent climate change. change,’ the artistic duo told us.
image ©Camille Blak
