Can Learning in the Internet Age Become a Creative Act?
The Exhibition, I learn, you learn, he learns... ask us this March to decide for ourselves.
Lavardin- February 12, 2012 – On March 2, 2012 a multimedia exhibit, I learn, you learn, he learns ... opens at Gallerie La Resistance to explore this question. The artwork was created by a collective of 876 people worldwide during an online artistic experiment, Intro to Artistic Intelligence. In keeping with its web roots, the exhibit has strong on-line components, including a virtual exhibition, a live streaming performance in multiple cities and an Art Game that downloads to your home computer so that it doesn’t end at the gallery.
Inspired by and produced in parallel with Prof. Norvig and Prof. Thrun of Stanford University’s famous Intro to Artificial Intelligence class that attracted over 160,000 students worldwide in fall of 2011, the exhibit features work created during the same ten-week period. It ranges from individual drawings to a three meter group artwork. It also launches a project directly rooted in the Stanford AI class called I learn, you learn, he learns...
I learn, you learn, he learns ... is an Evolutionary Art Game. Using a Wii remote, each person dances with an AI agent in a virtual representation of the data created by the AI collective’s project.  As each person dances with the AI agent, not only will they learn about the project and see a visualization of their own movements, but they will also become teachers themselves because the motion data generated will teach a robot how to dance.
As the AI collective group learned, the process of machine learning is slow. Usually, the general public only sees the results of AI research after hundred of thousands of attempts. Here, the process will take place in full view. As time passes, the AI agent in the game will gradually learn to dance more and more proficiently. Viewers will be able to look at past dances and vote on which dances they like best. As an open source project everyone is free to experiment with different approaches and see the process unfold.
“We live in a time were how we learn is changing in front of our eyes.” says artist Aprille Best GLOVER.  “Along with the internet transforming the classroom that was largely untouched even by the Industrial Revolution, there is an explosion in the fields of Cognitive Sciences and Artificial Intelligence. All of these changes are creating an opportunity for us in our society reexamine what learning means to each of us on a personal level. These kinds of questions about deeper meaning leak out of the domains of education, medicine, or engineering and find a home in the arts....”
The exhibit, I learn, you learn, he learns ... begins March 2, 2012 at Gallerie La Resistance in Lavardin France. The opening of the exhibition in France - as well as the premier performance at 7:30pm UTC+1 by dancer Mariana Carranza in Germany with her robotic dance partner in another AI Lab in Switzerland - will be streamed live at www.other-ai.org. The exhibit is open to the public every day except Mondays and Tuesdays from March 3 to April 1, 2012 from 10am to 6pm.
