Choreomata: Performance and Performativity After AI & Disintegrator Podcast
disintegrator (Roberto Alonso Trillo and Marek Poliks) introduces new research at the plane of exchange between deep learning and social behavior in the form of a book published by CRC Press (Taylor & Francis), Choreomata, and an accompanying podcast series, Disintegrator.
“At a certain point, some subsets of humanity began to correlate existence with vulnerability—a thing may only be said to really exist if it can be pounded into dust, stripped from Heideggerian utility, cleaved from its ideal form by virtue of its malformations.”
At this very moment Artificial Intelligence is, in a sense, its most vulnerable. After all: AI is only really able to make mistakes when it is liable for mistake-making; AI is only really able to induce or reinforce structural social problems when adopted by forces able to mobilize social power. In turn, Choreomata’s publication is timely; this is the moment when AI can be said to really exist in itself, not yet as an emerging ontological category or as some drastic innovation in computation, but rather as a specific stream of social, aesthetic, and political contingency.
Regarding the title: Choreomata. The automaton describes a mindlessly pattering Turing machine as it tacitly executes a series of instructions, a conception of machine behavior that attributes unearned autonomy to the digital or mechanical realm. The choreomaton instead commits to the hidden cables and tangled puppet-strings that tether the mere robot to the unfathomably chaotic protocols of global computation, hegemonic technocapital, and post-modern civilization. These often-conflicting protocols—computational reason, geopolitical theater, corporate ethology, downstream and upstream social reuptake—yield the odd and uncanny behaviors through which AI asserts itself as contingent and therefore real. This book dives headlong into the performance poetics of the fragmentary golems, ghosts, and avatars through which we, the authors, can interpret our own positions within the dense, hyperdimensional choreography of Artificial Intelligence.
Choreomata is a book about performance and performativity, but more specifically, it is a book about the performance of artificiality and the performance of intelligence. This book ardently asserts that both humans and human-designed computational forces are thoroughly engaged in an entangled, mutual performance of AI.
Choreomata features contributions from Refik Anadol, Sofian Audry (UQAM), Barbara Bolt (University of Melbourne), AA Cavia, Catie Cuan, Jonathan Impett (Orpheus Institute), Klára Vosecká, Tomáš Musil, Jon McCormack (Monash University), Anna Munster (UNSW), Reza Negarestani, Peter Nelson (HKBU), Luciana Parisi (Duke University), Rudolf Rosa, Ned Rossiter (UNSW), Alexander Schubert (Musikhochschule Hamburg), Sasha Stiles, Tiziana Terranova (University of Naples L’Orientale), Keith Tilford, Davor Vincze (HKBU), and Jennifer Walshe (University of Oxford).
Choreomata’s research body is enhanced through its companion podcast Disintegrator, a snapshot of the disintegrating modern subject under the regime of algorithm, technocapital, and geological scale operations. Bi-weekly episodes feature some of the book authors (Refik Anadol, Anil Bawa-Cavia, Reza Negarestani, Sasha Stiles, etc…) in addition to commentary from luminaries in the field (Benjamin Bratton, Alex Reisner, etc…). Subscribe to Disintegrator on any major online distribution platform.
Marek Poliks
Marek Poliks is an independent artist, engineer, and theorist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is fascinated by the historical determinations of modern subjectivity and is giddily watching their contemporary expressions disassemble and liquify under the regime of algorithmic capital. He works with machine learning as applied to sound, digital media, robotics, and sculpture.
Roberto Alonso
Roberto Alonso Trillo is an artist, musician, and theorist based between Hong Kong, where he works as an Assistant Professor at HKBU, and Europe. His practice explores the connections between different artistic disciplines, from music and dance to video art, sculpture, and digital media. His recent work examines networked hybrid practices endemic to a world increasingly mediated by AI and machine learning. Roberto’s research operates at the intersection between philosophy, sociology, and cultural studies.
Participants
Refik Anadol, Sofian Audry, Barbara Bolt, AA Cavia, Catie Cuan, Jonathan Impett, Pelin Kivrak, Tomáš Musil, Jon McCormack, Anna Munster, Reza Negarestani, Peter Nelson, Luciana Parisi, Rudolf Rosa, Ned Rossiter, Alexander Schubert, Sasha Stiles, Tiziana Terranova, Keith Tilford, Davor Vincze, Klára Vosecká, Jennifer Walshe
Social media
@dis.integrator (Marek, Instagram), @trillo.roberto (Roberto, Instagram), @roberto_alonso (Roberto, Twitter), @WeAreTandF (T&F, Twitter), @randicohen89 (Randi Slack @ T&F, Twitter).
