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Art and Technology

A human hand touches a robotic hand. © Eva Beck / Goethe-Institut

Artificial intelligence, Quantum, blockchains and cryptocurrencies – everyone’s talking about digitisation, and yet some seminal new technologies are unknown to the general public. With a view to boosting digital literacy in civil society, we start up projects about technologies that have the potential to transform society. We bring cultural values and critical perspectives into the debate and point up sociocultural, humanist and ethical aspects that should inform the ways in which we use and shape these developments.

Current Programmes & Projects

Quantum London logo with red and black abstract artwork esp51

International artist-in-residence programm
 Studio Quantum

'Studio Quantum' is a new international artist-in-residence programme from the Goethe-Institut, exploring emerging quantum technologies through the lens of art. The residency and accompanying event series will examine important ethical and ecological questions around the impact of quantum technologies. 
Automated Scanning Technology for 3D Digitisation © Public domain

Interviews, articles and videos
 #Heritage_digitised

How can cultural heritage be preserved digitally? With #Heritage_digitised we delve into discourses surrounding the digitisation of art and cultural heritage to ask what does this imply for narratives around postcolonialism, sustainability, representation and diversity? 

Yellow/beige background with orange graphics with project name Nero

The Synthetic Sacred

A research initiative by Lucy Rose Sollitt and supported by Goethe-Institut London, the Synthetic Sacred explores pathways for ecological restoration amidst hybridity. The notion of the Synthetic Sacred, is both a provocation and an attempt to forge sustainable narratives and practices. Weaving together posthuman and Indigenous knowledge systems, it explores the sacred as a means to heal fractured relations with nature and resist capitalist-colonialist extraction. It proposes the sacred as a framework to guide and detoxify our synthetic creations. In this way, the Synthetic Sacred aims to shift the compass of development away from extraction and exploitation of life and towards restoration, kinship and flourishing.
DAOWO © Goethe-Institut | Studio Hyte

DAOWO

DAOWO: Decentralised Autonomous Organisation With Others - The global collaboration project examines the potential of blockchain technologies for the arts and civil society. By convening transnational networks of leading international arts and tech institutions and communities, we seek to seed a new decentralised ecology of open source cultural organisations, built by artists embedded in distributed global communities. An initiative of Furtherfield, Serpentine Galleries and the Goethe-Institut London.
Cartoon of a robot walking dogs © Goethe Institut London. Illustration: Carlos D'Agaro.

When AI takes a familiar form
Learning to live with robots

How are new technologies such as robotics impacting our educational and cultural experiences in the UK and beyond? And how does culture impact how we adopt new technologies into our everyday lives? 

Newsletter about current cultural events

All our events in the visual arts, film, literature, music, dance and theatre!

New Technologies in Our Lives

Our everyday lives are determined by technology – by the tools we use and which (often without our even noticing it) use us. We’ve put together a collection of articles that critically explore various aspects of new technologies.

Illustration: Several robots carry books through a control room, a human oversees their activities. Philippos Vassiliades | CC-BY-SA

Reflections about the future of translation
 A.I. and Literary Translation

Is Artificial Intelligence advanced enough to grasp and process literary texts in all their linguistic richness, and translate them into another language? Will it ever be advanced enough? Or will it remain "artificial" instead of "artistic"? Perhaps it doesn't have to be perfect to be useful and can work as a tool to support literary translators in their work – Let's ask some experts! 

Diane Edwards, Sour Dirt, 2020 © Diane Edwards

AI Autumn Session Glasgow 2019
 AI; In Whose Eyes?

What is the role of art in shaping how we think about and use AI? How can artists working with AI respond to the complexities? “AI Autumn Session”, which brought together a group of artists and researchers at the Goethe Institut-Glasgow in October 2019, was underpinned by a central thesis: alternative ways of collaborating with AI need to be found outside of the capitalist and colonist logics which currently dominate its use, and that art has an important role to play in shaping new approaches.
The Role of Blockchain in the Arts - Ensembl (Hong Kong) - DAOWO © Goethe-Institut

#DAOWO Sessions - Artworld Prototypes
 How to Prototype the Artworld with Blockchain

The theme of the DAOWO Sessions: Artworld Prototypes was remarkably relevant to the times we are living: a pandemic prompting us to work with each other differently, calls for a fairer society, art spaces looking for new strategies to remain relevant and the hysterical (or just baffled?) media interest for crypto art. The topic also inserts itself into a broader, much older context in which contemporary art follows market logics that don’t work for most artists.
Screenshot from the “Berlin: Black Swan DAO” Zoom online session, 28 January 2020 © Goethe-Institut

#DAOWO Sessions - Artworld Prototypes
 Can Blockchain Democratise Arts Commissioning?

So far, blockchain systems have been mostly used in the world of finance or supply chain but they have so much more potential. An article about the Berlin contribution to the DAOWO Sessions - Artworld Prototypes: Black Swan DAO.


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