Honored to be invited to do an inspirational and motivational talk at the FastTrack CityHack event tonight, addressing the possibilities, reasons and implications of cities becoming conscious.
Category: past events
all events that Tony Maslic participated in recently and which have been finished.
Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia Art
Tony Maslić, Keynoter
CHALLENGES IN ARCHITECTURE, URBAN DESIGN AND ART
7-8 June 2019 Conference
4-14 December 2019 Exhibition
University of Belgrade – Faculty of Architecture
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Gallery of Science and Technology
Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia Art
Tony Maslić
ABSTRACT
The quest to decrypt consciousness has increasingly getting a lot of attention in numerous scientific fields. Many are facing the hard problem of consciousness, in which most theories do not agree among each other. From within physics different theories are posed that are consistently in conflict with theories from other fields like biology, psychology, phenomenology, cognitive neuroscience, metaphysics, quantum mechanics and so on. Even the existence of consciousness itself is actually uncertain. The importance of not just getting an insight of what it might be, but rather getting a deeper understanding of what it really is, is becoming more urgent in a world where AI and Machine Learning are rapidly changing the way technology is infusing everyone’s daily life. Are we opening the box of pandora by developing these technologies, as increasingly has been warned by prominent figures of the tech industry, or could this technology solve the bigger problems humanity is facing with, like climate change. What if we accidentally develop technology which manifests signs of consciousness, and how to deal with this. These and a plethora of other questions are becoming so urgent to address that a neutral zone of research and experimentation is required, free from commercial incentives and unbiased within science. Within the territories of Postmedia art this could take place. This paper will explore and present a new study the author proposed to commence at the City University of Hong Kong at the SCM starting in September this year.
Tony Maslić, KEYNOTER
Maslić has been working in a multitude of various media, predominantly in cross disciplinary installations Throughout his work he has explored the relationship of space with politics, social economics, psychology, urbanism, pre- and post war social conflicts, violence, propaganda & populism, cultural identity, group behavior, consumerism, effects of Capitalism, social and cultural displacements and the dichotomy between the digital virtual realm and the physical material world.
He will start a PhD to research Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia Art at the City University of Hong Kong, at the School for Creative Media.
He curated and produced 9 international art events. He participated in shows: TiLt platform, Loutraki, Greece; MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, Austria; the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Biennale for Architecture, Italy, as official exhibitor; Remake Festival, Brno, Czech Republic; Skuč Gallery, Slovenia, Ljubljana; Observatoire 4, Montreal, Canada; Yugoslav Biennial for Young Artists, Vršac, Serbia; A-Space Gallery, Toronto, Canada; Escrubir the Europe, Morellia, Mexico; Gallery Michelin Szwajcer, Antwerp, Belgium; Artos Foundation, Nicosia, Cyprus; Neme, Limassol, Cyprus; Las Palmas, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Lecture of Tony Maslić The Quest to Attain Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia Art Tuesday, June 11th at 6pm
Small Hall at 6:00 PM
Lecture:
The Quest to Attain Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia Art
Paul Gauguin asked the eternal but seemingly unanswerable question in 1897, with his painting titled:
Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
Everything about this question has to do with consciousness, and it has plagued us since the beginning of times, when we got aware of our environment and, more importantly, of ourselves in our surroundings. Recently, the notion of what consciousness really is has become more urgent to answer. Digital tools like AI, Deep Learning, Artificial Neural Networks, Advanced Robotics, Automatized Military Drones are equipped with Assassination Algorithms and infinitely more tech is added to this list and developed almost on a daily basis, which is progressively accelerating its evolution. Technological Singularity, a point in time where technological growth becomes irreversible and incontrollable, is suddenly not so farfetched as a concept anymore, and it appears that it is approaching much faster than anticipated. What will happen if we develop technology that will manifest consciousness, or individual characteristics, or personality even? To be able to recognize this, we first need to thoroughly understand what consciousness is. This, however, forms an impossibility known as the Hard Problem of Consciousness. At this moment there is not even certainty if consciousness really exists. Different Scientific disciplines have developed a plethora of different theories which are incompatible among each other, and the gap of disagreements is widening fueled by contradictions and paradoxical findings. Perhaps we need a unified neutral territory to bring together all those different disciplines in an experimental situation, free from commercial, governmental or military incentives. The field of Postmedia art could offer this domain, and experiments with robotics and audience perceptions could provide a different insight of how to address these questions, thus bringing the ancient question that fascinated Gauguin so long ago back into the arts. This talk will present some artworks which are suggesting a different approach and will invite the audience to think and discuss these issues with an open mind. Ultimately, could digital culture provide insights in this ancient quest or will this knowledge stay out of reach forever?
Short Bio
Tony Maslić is a contemporary artist who has developed his works over the last 30 years, which he exhibited internationally. He represented Cyprus at the Venice Biennial for Architecture in 2014. He will start a PhD at the School for Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong in September 2019, where he will develop his ideas on the connection between the digital virtual realm and our physical material one, focusing on Artificial Consciousness in Postmedia art.
The lecture will be held in English
the musicians, (revamped)
If you have missed the intriguing generative produced patterns and intriguing rhythms played by the Musicians, you will have a second chance tomorrow the 6th of December from 6:30 pm and onwards, at Đure Jakšića 2. at Galerija, Nauke i Tehnike SANU. Beograd, Serbia. Exhibition will be from 6 December until 16 December 2017…. PM me for an appointment, if you like to get some personal insights explained at the venue. So join me if you are in Belgrade.
Does Europe Exist 2.0
My work will participate in the exhibition “Does Europe Exist V2.0” in Artos foundation in Nicosia, Cyprus. From 15 until 22 November 2017.
Screening, talk and Q&A – film HotSpot, Roskilde, Denmark
19th of October 2017, The film HotSpot will be screened during the “Imagine Europe” open seminar in Roskilde Denmark, organized by IAMCR International Association for Media and Communication Research’s Participatory Communication and Research Section in collaboration with the Roskilde University of Denmark.
I will introduce insights of the film HotSpot, made in 2016. Further I will sketch the context of the conditions, which HotSpot was focused on. The Greek and European political dynamics of that moment, created a bizarre condition for the existence of those circumstances which allowed a unique situation to develop and gradually getting out of hand. The talk will be short and concise, followed by the screening of the film and concluded with a Q&A involving the audience.
Please come if you are in the area.
The Musicians
The installation “the Musicians” shown in Loutraki, Greece in August 2017 during the first TILT PLATFORM event called: “Nameless”
TILT PLATFORM Exhibition Nameless
PRESS RELEASE
Opening: 4 August 2017 at 20.00
Duration: 4 – 20 August 2017
Opening hours: Mon – Sun: 19.30 – 24.00 Venue: Building Beau Rivage, Loutraki seaside
The exhibition Nameless is the first exhibition of the newly founded TILT platform*. The exhibition aims to present works from contemporary Greek and international artists reflecting on contemporary challenges and experiences.
The constant changes of our time create a state of uncertainty where human beings are often watching as external observers. The changes in political and social mechanisms, the promises of a constantly evolving technology, the new rules and the new ways of survival generate a frenetic atmosphere in which we need to adapt. Our daily experiences seem to be constrained following a restless trajectory and the task of assigning meaning to them is not an easy one. In this context of precariousness and speed, the terms of the game are ceaselessly redefined, leaving usually little room for any act of reaction.
Thus the exhibition Nameless aims:
Firstly, through the works on view, to present an extensive reference to situations and experiences responding to this changing reality as well as the unexplored reactions of human beings towards it.
Secondly, to highlight the act of naming. An act that primarily consists of our ability to literally assign names to phenomena, thus shaping the qualities they already have or the qualities we attribute to them. This act is indeed powerful since we create a better way to communicate with one another while at the same time we organize the symbolic systems that shape our perception and upon which our life is dependent.
23 Greek and international artists set their own questions and propose their narratives through sound works, video, installations, and performance.
Participating artists: Babis Venetopoulos, Lina Theodorou, Eva Papamargariti, Nektarios Pappas, Yioula Chatzigeorgiou, Janis Rafailidou, Medea Electronique, Tony Maslic, Yiannis Isidorou, Kalliopi Lemos, Mika Rottenberg, Stelios Dexis & Myrto Vounatsou, Nikos Arvanitis, Alex Papaioannou, Danai Simou.
We are happy to host two artistic platforms, namely festival Miden represented by the curator Gioula Papadopoulou and the artists IP Yuk-Yiu, Ullrich Klose, Jeroen Cluckers, Sandrine Deumier & Philippe Lamy, and the Museum of Forgetting (Sweden) represented by artists: Konstantin Economou and Klitsa Antoniou.
Curated by: Takis Zerdevas, Makis Faros, Katerina Gkoutziouli
Events during the Exhibition Opening (Aug 4):
21.00 | Yioula Chatzigeorgiou: Happy Birthday, performance
21.30 | Lina Theodorou: Pawnshop: a financial board game inspired by the contemporary Greek reality
Digital Platform Vibration code
The platform Vcode parasitizes and spreads in the public space. A real but also conceptual connection of physical space to the Internet. Site-specific images, videos and music will come up to your mobile or tablet screen via a custom designed application. A drop of the uncanny in the daily life of the city. The first experimental Vcode is realized with the collaboration of the Focus School students: Eirini Aggelidi, Lea Abatzoglou, Stella Anastasopoulou, Panos Mazarakis, Eva Besleme, Nadia Panagopoulou, Rita Tsela, Fillipos Ferentinos and our artist friends: music band Sister, Gioula Papadopoulou, M.F., Yasemi Rapti, among others.
INFO
*TILT PLATFORM
TILT is a platform of creative people including artists, researchers and theorists. The TILT platform creates and presents art projects; it explores and intervenes in the public space and on the Internet. Its main goal is to research, identify and highlight the new processes and phenomena that have begun to emerge and dominate our lives. Through art and technology, the TILT platform aims to create conceptual tools or at least a framework and the conditions that these tools can be born and transmitted. The TILT platform is a transmitter of enquiries, an open research lab, a survival workshop.
The TILT platform consists of: Zoi Pirini, Takis Zerdevas, Makis Faros, Katerina Gkoutziouli. The TILT platform is constantly expanding.
Web: www.tiltplatform.com
FB: www.facebook.com/tiltplatform Email: info@tiltplatform.com
screening HotSpot and artist talk
25 May, 2017 at 2pm time in China. I will show and speak about HotSpot at the SoFTA film festival in XJTLU, Suzhou, China. Curated and organized by Holger Briel. Come if you are around or in the neighborhood.
Screening ‘Hotspot’ with artist talk
On Friday, March 24, 2017 at 7:30pm, NeMe invites you to (b)orders, a screening of two short videos by Tony Maslic and Aron Rossman-Kiss followed by artist talks, discussion, and drinks at the NeMe Arts Centre.
(b)orders is a one evening event which explores the relationship between the present shifting political geography instigated by countries constructing border fences and the migrants and refugees who now mainly live their lives suspended in demarcated zones in a precarious state of survival or even violently displaced within their own country. According to researcher, Elisabeth Vallet, from Quebec University in Montreal, there are currently seventy walls placed around the world to protect national borders, compared with twelve in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. The Ukraine, Estonia, Austria and Slovenia have either commenced constructing a border fence or are considering building one. Greece, Bulgaria, Britain (Calais), Turkey and Hungary have already completed their border fences. The dream of an open united Europe is collapsing and its border-control-free Schengen Area is in practise, no longer legitimate. We are now living in times where goods can travel more freely than people, and mega corporations dictate state policies and border controls.
Responding to these concerns, NeMe is presenting two artists whose work examines the present issues of national borders and refugees.
Tony Maslic will speak about his work, HotSpot. Filmed over a period of three months at the edge of central Athens, the video is a modest witness of how international and local authorities are failing to solve the humanitarian and economic crisis. The unacceptable situation in the refugee accommodation centre appears as if the EU is maintaining these conditions to either intentionally deter more refugees from arriving, or simply because of incompetence due to a lack of will to find a humanitarian solution. Both reasons are alarming, revealing a crisis of ideology rather than a crisis of finance, where people are instrumentalised into political tools, with the demise of human rights. Open borders are transforming into high voltage charged fences protecting xenophobia, isolationism, corporate colonialism and exploitation, all within the constitutional framework of an increasingly divided European Union.
In the course of the past three years, Aron Rossman-Kiss has undertaken a series of field trips along Europe’s borders and refugee routes, creating a body of work incorporating the voices and experiences collected during these journeys. Drawing upon his experience, he will evoke the artistic and ethical questions that can arise when working in such situations and the challenges one can face when working with themes already saturating mainstream media.
The talks will be delivered in English and entrance is free.
more information at: NeMe
nEUROsis
The global financial crisis of the past eight years is heavily impacting most European Mediterranean countries, destabilising not only the symbolic structures of Europe expressed in its initial agreements as unity, stability and equality but also the idea of what the EU is and what it could or should be. There is an observable division within Europe, not only between the Balkan countries and the west but also between north and south, where so called equality amongst nations is resulting in policy decisions which could be argued, favour industrialised members and do not take into account the administrative, financial and specific cultural features of individual European member states. These divides and the contemporary political and theoretical debates around them, form the context for this project, nEUROsis takes a critical look, through art that reflects politically on its own social relevance and engagement at the contradicting values of the EU.
nEUROsis consists of 3 events in Limassol, Cyprus:
- A series of workshops at the Cyprus University of Technology; 16-18 November 2016 at 2:30pm-6:30pm
- A seminar at the Cyprus University of Technology; Saturday, 19 November 2016, 5:00pm-8:00pm
- An exhibition at NeMe Arts Centre, opening on Saturday, 19 November 2016, at 8:30pm
Participating artists: Lanfranco Aceti, Bill Balaskas, Paolo Cirio, Salvatore Iaconesi, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Janez Janša,Tony Maslić, Jonathan Munro, Ioakim Mylonas, Oriana Persico, Evi Tselika, and Stelios Tzivas.
Exhibition curator: Yiannis Colakides
Seminar speakers: Lanfranco Aceti, Salvatore Iaconesi, Janez Janša, Janez Janša, Chrystalleni Loizidou, Jonathan Munro, Oriana Persico and Evi Tselika.
The seminar will be in English.
Exhibition duration:
19 November 2016 – 18 December 2016
Opening Days/Times:
Tuesday-Friday: 5:30pm-8:30pm, Saturday: 10:00am-1:00pm
Leonardo Electronic Almanac will devote an issue based on the central concerns of this project.