Announcing the 2020 AMI Grant Recipients
Supporting artists developing new work with machine learning
As part of Google’s ongoing commitment to support the arts and ambitious computer science research, Google Research, in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, is happy to support six contemporary artists working with machine learning in their art practices.
We are excited to announce the recipients for this year’s 2019–2020 funding cycle: Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Alex Fefegha, Allison Parrish, Anna Ridler, Martine Syms, and Paola Torres Núñez del Prado.
This year’s selected projects explore creative machine learning techniques in film, sound sculpture, poetry, archaeology, and interactive storytelling.
Update (April 2021): Today, we are publishing the outcomes of the grants. Explore the projects, and learn more about the residency: g.co/artistsmeetai
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay explores the materiality of sound, and how technology can mediate a listener’s experience of sound through large-scale installation and live performance. Budhaditya’s media artworks have been exhibited, performed or presented, among others, in Transmediale, Berlin; ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe; Donau Festival, Krems; Harvestworks, New York City; and Screen City Biennial, Stavanger, Norway. He graduated from India’s National Film School, specializing in Sound, and holds a Master of Arts degree in New Media and Sound Art from Aarhus University, Denmark, and a Ph.D. in Artistic Research and Sound Studies from Leiden University, The Netherlands. Budhaditya lives and works in Kolkata, India, and Berlin, Germany.
Alex Fefegha works at the intersection of design, code, speculative fiction, and art. His works explore collaborative interactions between humans and machines, and prototype future visions into new tangible interactive experiences. As co-founder of Comuzi Lab, a design invention studio based in London, Alex applies emergent technologies for next generation products and services for clients like Nike, ASOS, Uber, BBC, University of Arts London, Ustwo, Waltham Forest Council and the NHS. Alex has a Master of Arts in Innovation from London Art & Design School, Central Saint Martins. He teaches creative and unusual uses of emerging technology at the University of the Arts London Creative Computing Institute. Alex lives and works in London, U.K.
Allison Parrish is a computer programmer, poet, educator, and game designer. Her teaching and practice address the unusual phenomena that blossom when language and computers meet, with a focus on artificial intelligence and computational creativity. Allison is an Assistant Arts Professor at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, where she earned her master’s degree in 2008. Named “Best Maker of Poetry Bots” by the Village Voice in 2016, Allison’s computer-generated poetry has recently been published in Ninth Letter and Vetch. She is the author of “@Everyword: The Book” (Instar, 2015), which collects the output of her popular long-term automated writing project that tweeted every word in the English language. Her first full-length book of computer-generated poetry, “Articulations,” was published by Counterpath in 2018. She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Anna Ridler is an artist and researcher, working with collections of information, particularly self-generated data sets, to create new and unusual narratives in a variety of mediums. She is interested in narrative and new forms of storytelling, particularly the intersection of new technologies and filmmaking. She likes to explore what happens when things cannot fit into discrete categories. Anna has exhibited at institutions such as the V&A Museum, Ars Electronica, HeK Basel, Impakt and the Barbican Centre, and has degrees from the Royal College of Art, Oxford University and University of Arts London. She was a 2018 EMAP fellow and was listed by Artnet as one of nine “pioneering artists” exploring AI’s creative potential. She lives and works in London, U.K.
Martine Syms uses video and performance to examine representations of blackness. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened extensively, including at the Museum of Modern Art, Hammer Museum, ICA London, New Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, and The Studio Museum in Harlem. From 2007–2011 she was the co-director of the Chicago artist run project space Golden Age, and she currently runs Dominica Publishing, an imprint dedicated to exploring blackness in visual culture. She is the author of Implications and Distinctions: Format, Content and Context in Contemporary Race Film (2011). She is a faculty member in the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts.
Paola Torres Núñez del Prado is an artist and researcher working with textile assemblages and embroideries, sound, digital media, interactive art, and video. Working with contemporary technology, she explores the limits of sensorial experience by examining concepts like interpretation, translation, and misrepresentation. Her work has been performed and exhibited at institutions such as Malmo Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art at Qorikancha Palace, The Silver Building, Plateforme Intermedia, Lofoten International Art Festival, and 516 Arts. Paola studied at The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2014, M.F.A.) and Hunter College, City University of New York (2005, B.A. Studio Art). She lives and works in Sweden, but her current research is based in Peru, her country of origin.
Artists + Machine Intelligence (AMI) is a program at Google that invites artists to work with engineers and researchers together in the design of intelligent systems.
Artist grants are a collaboration between Google Arts & Culture and Google AI. The team behind the project includes Hannah Andrews, Cyril Diagne, Holly Grimm, Damien Henry, Eva Kozanecka, Rachel Levinson, Kenric McDowell, and Parag Mital.
Questions? Feedback? Tweet us or email: artwithmi@google.com
