Sarah Brin, an accomplished writer and curator, explores the intricate relationship between art, technology, and community. Brin highlights her experience as a public programs manager at Autodesk’s Pier 9 Workshop, emphasizing its significance as a hub for various discussed projects. She expresses a deep interest in “art that happens in the corner”—art that operates outside traditional institutions and engages underrepresented demographics.
Brin shares her concerns about how, in the realm of digital fabrication and tech-integrated art, form often overshadows personal experience and context. She uses examples like biased AI in Google image searches and the initial racial recognition issues with Microsoft Kinect to illustrate how digital systems can perpetuate human biases. Moreover, she emphasizes the importance of safe spaces and community guidelines to foster inclusivity and prevent harm in diverse environments.
A central theme of Brin’s talk is the potential of digital tools for both creative and destructive ends, a dichotomy she explores with a critical yet optimistic lens. She highlights projects like Project Enable, which uses 3D printing to create prosthetic limbs for children, showcasing how technology can significantly improve lives. Additionally, Brin ponders the aesthetic and communicative possibilities of digital fabrication, referencing scholars like Ian Bogost to discuss how different media influence our understanding and interactions with the world.
Overall, Brin’s discourse is a rich exploration of how digital and physical realms intersect, focusing on the transformative power of community and technology in the arts.
This presentation was part of the symposium Unhanded. In this panel we ask about the variety of new relationships with materials that emerging with the increasing ubiquitousness of digital technologies. With the increased complexity of tools we wonder how do we learn about materials? How do we get to know them? How do we share this knowledge? We can now know the molecular structure of wood or metal without touching it. Is this a more intimate relationship than working directly with our hands? Does it matter? If the objects coming out of digital and mechanical processes are more removed from our handywork, how might they carry the mark of the machine? Should we be able to read the machine in the material?
As long as there's technological innovation for growth and creativity, there will continue to be technological advances and tools for destruction and war
Developed in our Digital Economies Lab, An Artist’s Almanac is Suzanne Kite’s dive into artist solidarity through exchange and sharing. Kite discussed how she began from the DEL’s central focus on fostering artistic prosperity, and expanded toward questions about whether existing resources are going where they are needed most. Through her work on the project she builds a network of collaborators and fosters dreaming and imagining workshops as a path toward a better future.
