The Probable and the Possible

Compression, classification, and mimesis lie at the heart of generative AI. What are the implications of the representational regimes on which these techniques rely? How is meaning produced in such assemblages? How might AI be both an instrument and an obstacle in interrogating hegemony, violence, and extraction? What is the specific agency of art? And how are these insights used and applied in practice?

Organized by the newly established Master’s Major in Art:ificial Studies at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), this symposium brings together artists and researchers for two days of critical discussion and exchange on artistic engagements with AI. Participants are invited to share experiences of working with—or against—machine learning, games, robotics, generated video, and sound. The program focuses on how artistic practices address the technical, political, and historical dimensions of AI while imagining spaces of resistance within algorithmic systems.

Speakers include Hito Steyerl, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, Cemile Sahin, LOREM, Roland Meyer, Agustina Woodgate, Onome Ekeh, and Sadie Plant. The symposium features talks, workshops, and a screening.

Wednesday, October 22
9:15am Welcome & Introduction / 9:45–10:45am Hito Steyerl / 11am–12pm Eglė Kulbokaitė / 12–1:30pm Lunch break / 1:30–5pm Workshops (for MFA students only) / 6–7pm Sadie Plant.

Thursday, October 23
9:30–10:30am Onome Ekeh / 11am–12pm Roland Meyer / 12–1pm Lunch break / 1–2pm Agustina Woodgate / 2:30–3:30pm LOREM / 4–5pm Cemile Sahin.

The symposium takes place in room 5.K12, Toni-Areal (ZHdK), and is facilitated and hosted by Vanessa Bosch, Arif Kornweitz, Felix Stalder, and Judith Welter—the team of the new Major in Art:ificial Studies within the Master Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts.

All conversations and the screening are open to the public. Workshops are for students only.