TTF 2021 – Site of the Synthetic

Site of the Synthetic / Пространства Синтетики
https://synthetic.site/
Joel Fear (NZ) | Nicole Fitzgerald (CA) | Lera Shynkarova (BY)

Intelligence is only disclosed as it is expressed through a medium, or site of expression. Moving beyond the avatar model of intelligence, in which various figures –– human, machine, or otherwise –– are the subject of analysis, we articulate a figuration of a synthetic intelligence through the specification of the site. This specification unfolds across the various elements of site design –– data mobilization, learning algorithms, interfaces, constraint spaces, co-relations. Here, the human figure is less a user than yet another element of the site, both a subject and an object of design. The resulting expression of intelligence is neither human nor machinic, but an emergent product –– a synthesis –– of these elements and their composition.

Site of the Synthetic is a project of design, guided by two questions: How might a landscape of possible intelligences take form and how might we reorient ourselves accordingly?

There has never been a more pressing moment for this kind of project. As the technological capacities of artificial intelligence mature into their potential, as the human is de-centred from its position of privilege, and as the planet nears a number of bifurcation points, new modes of intelligibility –– hence new modes, new models of intelligence –– are no longer an aspiration, but a necessity, for a viable terraforming.

Credits:

The project was developed during The Terraforming 2021 at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow, Russia
https://theterraforming.strelka.com/

Project team: Joel Fear, Nicole Fitzgerald, Lera Shynkarova
Program Directors: Benjamin H. Bratton, Nicolay Boyadjiev

Additional Credits:

Music:
Claude Speeed

Special thanks:
Nicolay Boyadjiev
Benjamin Bratton
Robert Pietrusko
Venkatesh Rao
Tobias Rees
Pete Wolfendale
Liam Young

Видео TTF 2021 – Site of the Synthetic канала Strelka Institute/Институт Стрелка