A SYMPOSIUM ON ART, TECHNOLOGY, AND THE FUTURE OF CREATION
Parramatta South Campus – Building EHa–First floor–Room 30
Catering: Lunch will be available
This symposium brings together researchers, artists, and academics to explore the intersection of algorithmic processes and creative practice.
In an age where algorithms curate what we see, hear, and create, what does it mean to be an artist? This symposium explores the evolving relationship between human creativity and machine intelligence, examining how algorithmic processes are shaping aesthetics, authorship, and cultural production.
From generative art and AI-assisted music production to the ethics of algorithmic creativity, our speakers will examine how AI is reshaping artistic expression, challenging traditional notions of authorship, and opening new possibilities for creative collaboration between humans and machines.
The focus of this symposium is on how machine intelligence is mobilised by humans to create art. The presumption is that human intellect and creative practice are the drivers of art-making processes with machines at their disposal as a kind of interlocutor — a partner to the process where human emotion and the human sensorium cohere.
Where machines within computational processes are said to create art, a question arises as to whether the works that emerge can be judged on the same basis as we would judge human creativity. The idea that computers can surpass human creations presumes a model of art whose aesthetics could only be imagined.
Whether using images, music or words, this symposium will query the evolutionary trajectory of both the human and technology pathway to their next stages of creative practice, traversing this territory with practicing artists who use machines, computational programs and other manifestations of AI.
"Most AI models of creativity can only explore spaces, not transform them, because they have no self-reflexive maps enabling them to change their own rules. A few, however, can do so. A scientific understanding of creativity does not destroy our wonder at it, nor does it make creative ideas predictable. Demystification does not imply dehumanization."
"Creativity is a fundamental feature of human intelligence, and a challenge for AI. AI techniques can be used to create new ideas in three ways: by producing novel combinations of familiar ideas; by exploring the potential of conceptual spaces; and by making transformations that enable the generation of previously impossible ideas."
Professor in Media Arts, School of Humanities and Communication Arts
Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
Dr Hart Cohen has published widely in visual anthropology, communications, film and media studies. He has directed three Australian Research Council Projects related to the Strehlow Collection and produced films including 'Mr. Strehlow's Films' (SBS 2001) and 'Cantata Journey' (ABC TV 2006).
He is co-author of the award-winning Screen Media Arts: An Introduction to Concepts and Practices (Oxford University Press 2009) and editor of the Global Media Journal (Australian Edition). His recent works include The Strehlow Archive: Explorations in Old and New Media (Routledge 2018) and Digital Humanities in the India Rim (OBP 2024).
Professor Cohen first convened the Artist and Algorithm Seminar Series for the Digital Humanities Research Initiative in 2019.
PS-EHa.1.30, Parramatta South Campus, Western Sydney University