on Toshareproject.it - curated by Bruce Sterling
Dear all, (sorry for crossposting)
It is a pleasure to invite you to this very special Internet Tour.
4 hours, a fake tech bus, unlimited fun
*Internet Tour: Invisible Infrastructures and AI Hallucinations*
San Francisco Bay Area. Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland.
12 Oct 2023
An in-person journey through the physical Internet infrastructure, a
tourist route of non-touristic places.
With Alex Saum-Pascual, Digital Artist, Poet, and Associate Professor of
Contemporary Spanish Literature and New Media, University of California,
Berkeley; Jill Miller, Visual Artist and Assistant Professor, Department of
Art Practice, University of California, Berkeley; Asma Kazmi,
Research-Based Artist and Associate Professor, Department of Art Practice,
University of California, Berkeley; Beth Piatote, Writer, Playwright,
Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and Director of
Arts Research Center, University of California, Berkeley.
Like any other digital technology, or the Internet itself, the current
explosion of AI research and applications relies on their conceptualization
as immaterial technologies. The idea of clean, ethereal networks whose data
is stored in a bodiless Cloud is nothing but a fallacy that hides thousands
of miles of fiber optic cables, innumerable data centers, and increasing
global energy consumption. The Internet that feeds and fuels AI is made up
of a series of materials, constructions, and interventions that are hidden
from the naked eye; from inconspicuous buildings in the centers of our
cities, to urban beaches where the undersea cables that connect countries
and continents are buried under the sand.
“Internet Tour” is an initiative by Barcelona-based artist Mario
Santamaría, whose successful bus tours have explored the hidden digital
infrastructures of many European cities. Now in Berkeley, in collaboration
with Alex Saum-Pascual, and together with the Berkeley Center for New Media
and the Arts Research Center, we’ll embark on a collective exploration of
the world’s preeminent technology hub, the San Francisco Bay Area, as we
unearth its Internet infrastructure. Traveling by bus and on foot across
Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland, this guided tour will also feature
poetic and artistic experiences. We’ll visit the places through which our
voices, images, cryptocurrencies, and future intelligences circulate as
cursed matter that flows from the same wound. Where to go from there?
An Art, Technology, and Culture Colloquium special event, presented with
the Arts Research Center and as part of BCNM’s Critical Infrastructures and
Cultural Analytics program. Co-sponsored by Institut Ramon Llull, the Peder
Sather Center for Advanced Study, and the Department of Spanish and
Portuguese at UC Berkeley.
Also part of the exhibition: *More Than Meets AI.* Curated by Jill Miller,
Eamon O’Kane, and Scott Rettberg, this exhibition emerges from a Peder
Sather Center for Advanced Study research project titled “Transformation
and Disruption: The Challenges and Opportunities of AI for Human
Creativity.” The project is focused on the aesthetic and cultural impacts
of AI, and will result both in art exhibitions and research cooperation
between the University of Bergen’s Center for Digital Narrative and UC
Berkeley.
More info and tickets:
https://events.berkeley.edu/arc/event/205768-internet-tour-invisible-infrastructures-and-ai
*Others Internet Tour editions:*
Barcelona (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023)
Madrid (2018, 2023)
Zaragoza (2019)
Bizkaia (2020)
Urbino (2020)
Hospitalet (2022)
Lleida (2022)
Berlin (2022)
Burgos (2023)
Palma (2023)
More info: http://internetour.com/
best,
Mario Santamaría
www.mariosantamaria.net
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Tourist Guide
https://internetour.com
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Studio: Trama 34. L’Hospitalet, Barcelona
e: info@mariosantamaria.net tw: @m_msanta
m: +0034 651 109 724
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