AiAiAi : Ai Module x Screens Course

Emerging technologies such as AI form entanglements between humans and other-than-humans that challenge strict binaries such as nature and culture rooted in western enlightenment anthropocentric logics. It follows that processes of learning about the use and design of such technologies can be framed in ways that disrupt these binaries to meaningfully attend to emerging perils and possibilities.

As there is not Ai in general, but a plethora of Ai entities feeding on particular data, providing profits for particular interests, affecting different humans and other-than-humans in particular ways and places, the course aimed to move beyond the design or use of Ai systems (“how Ai”) to also question “what Ai” and, importantly, “why Ai”. Ai technology and its (social, political, environmental, design) context is in furious flux so instead of focusing on outcomes, authoritative voices and fixed Ai facts, the course took the students’ personal experience as a starting point and their design practice as the method for learning to focus on the development of:

– A critical understanding of AI tech not as something general, objective or neutral but as something situated in particular contexts, serving certain interests and agendas and affecting different people differently.

– A practical understanding of AI tech : how does AI work from a technical perspective and how to use and design different AI tools and systems.

This experimental 3 week module took place at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design during the spring semester within the Screens course of the Interaction Design program. The course content was developed by Enrique Encinas (tutor of this course and member of Uroboros) with the help of other members of Uroboros collective. Uroboros archive, which includes materials in audio-visual form but also research publications and other texts accumulated through its 4 year history of festivals and other events, was one of the main reference resources for the course.