kavithAI

The accelerated participation of a new non-human agent - artificial intelligence (AI) - in the scientific and business world is well known. What is less recognised is how much AI is entrenching itself into domains concerning aesthetics, taste, emotion, and art.

Extending Donna Harraway’s compelling notion of ‘companion species’ beyond the organic and into the digital, it is increasingly clear that present and future humans will grow up and grow into a world made sensual and tangible as much by non-human machine agents such as algorithms,  as by fellow humans. For most of us this will happen too rapidly to perceive, let alone comprehend. This project seeks to anticipate and chronicle some early contours of this intractable shift.

The project invited a curated set of poets to contribute chosen poems to the exhibit. Their poems were fed to an generative AI, and the AI was tasked with completing the poems. A few poems entirely generated by the AI were also included.

The project collection comprising Human+AI poetry was exhibited and read to a human audience, typically individuals, but in cases also to groups and and their reactions and responses were captured.

The artist seeked to investigate and capture if AI-generated poetry is discernible from its Human created counterparts, how blurred or clear the lines between these are perceived to be, the kinds of emotional arousal and connection elicited from the audience towards each.