This session is facilitated by Anaïs Berck
About this session
In this session Anaïs Berck will share the story behind the artwork ‘Wikified Colonial Botany’ - exhibited in the Arts & Culture Salon (801). The work makes use of Wikipedia, Wikidata and images of Botanical Collections, a platform initiated by the Botanic Garden of Meise in Belgium. From there, collection managers, programmers, data scientists, artists and passionates are invited to reflect on questions from the artist’s ongoing research into algorithmic creation.
Anaïs Berck is a collective author’s name that stands for the collaboration between a tree, an algorithm and a human. This fictional name opens up a space for experiments and reflection. What if algorithms had agency and started to commit themselves to a more equal world and a healthier planet? What if digital collections would be consciously bended to include equal representation of other-than human entities? What does accessibility of data mean concretely? Who is the author of an algorithmic creation? Should we speak of collective authorship, including the authors of the software, and the authors of the data with which the model is trained? Algorithmic creations are possible thanks to the free software movement and academics who publish their work online. Why, how and where is creative code best shared?
Anaïs Berck will introduce different questions with brief experimental cases. Afterwards the discussion will be open to the people present, inviting them to share their practises, experiences and thoughts.