Screen Walk with Leon-Etienne Kühr and Ting-Chun Liu

In this Screen Walk, Leon-Etienne Kühr and Ting-Chun Liu will guide the audience through feedback-driven generative AI images in a live coding session. The duo investigates what happens when a machine is fed with its own output. At its core, machine learning consists of statistical models that learn from examples and estimate how they can reproduce them. The designed interface works according to a simple input/output principle and reinforces the illusion of intelligence. A closer look, however, reveals that it involves complicated pipelines of interconnected models and algorithms that process data and influence the aesthetics of the result. Using feedback as a strategy and cybernetics as a framework, these processes can be analysed through programming. This makes it possible to recognise how individual parts influence the final image. In this way, the hidden mechanisms behind AI-generated images can be uncovered.

In Screen Walks, a series of live-streamed explorations of digital spaces, selected artists and researchers investigate artistic strategies taking place online. The project gives an insight into practices using the screen as a medium. From re-contextualising pictures found on online marketplaces and uncovering data brokers’ invisible circulation of images to analysing in-game photography and the social, political and economic implications of games – Screen Walks examines various approaches, offers a behind-the-scenes look at artists’ work and uncovers new, current and forgotten digital spaces. Screen Walks is a collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery in London and Fotomuseum Winterthur.

The event is free and takes place on Zoom. Details on how to access the talk will be confirmed upon registration. REGISTER HERE.



Biographies:

Leon-Etienne Kühr is a computer scientist and media artist and leads the AI Lab at the Offenbach University of Art and Design. His work spans the fields of information visualisation and data science, focusing on the exploration and visualisation of datasets and models that are increasingly embedded in everyday life through AI-driven automation. His artistic research explores how our evolving algorithmic landscape might shape a future in which human-machine interaction is replaced by machine-to-machine feedback loops.

Ting-Chun Liu is a media artist, researcher and self-described half-baked programmer from Taiwan. He currently serves as the artistic associate at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. His practice revolves around audiovisual media, network practices and artificial intelligence. His research focuses on algorithmic art and critical AI, exploring the cybernetic mechanisms in
generative systems.

Screen Walks has launched a subscription model called Folders. Via a personal folder, subscribers receive access to exclusive content such as digital artworks by the artists participating in Screen Walks. Subscribe to Folders!