Focus Artistic Research

Overview
Against the backdrop of increasing integration of AI into everyday life, the research project poses questions about emotional and cognitive consequences for humans as well as social and ethical consequences and criteria of judgment. The interdisciplinary project brings together artists and researchers from Italy, Austria and the UK to analyze perceptual situations, wherein the boundaries between reality and fiction are often blurred, with regards to emotional-perceptual responses that have so far received little attention from the literature. Through the development of artworks informed by visual cultural studies, psychology, and theory of perception, questions such as "What is AI really?", "How does interaction with intelligent machines affect our emotional and cognitive responses?", and "How does it shape individual and collective lives?" will be explored.
 
Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, the project analyses how human-AI interaction redefines concepts of identity, belonging, and judgment criteria between real and fake experiences of reality. By intersecting and breaking down the boundaries between art and science, the project builds new understandings and critical approaches to the field of AI from a human-centered perspective.
 
Team
The leading team role is held by Pamela Breda, experienced artist, Phd researcher at Kingston University (UK) and tutor at UCA (UK). The team key collaborators are Prof. Ruth Schnell, leading media artist and chair for Digital Arts, Angewandte Vienna, Dr. Brigitte Krenn, leading researcher at the Austrian Center for Artificial Intelligence and Dr. Matthew Pelowski, multi-awarded researcher in Psychology at Vienna University. The group will be complemented by several researchers and artists.