MACHINE ACTS

Deep Learning (DL) processes are entering all human activities, including the cultural and creative industries. The traditional circuit in the audiovisual sector of production, distribution and consumption has been profoundly impacted by Deep Learning. Recent advancements are propelling the synthesis of images, audio, prose, and other forms of texts as “AI-generated media”.

We aim to discuss DL’s implications on the production side of the cinema and audiovisual sector to serve as a case study of the DL impact in the realm of creativity and creative work during the screenwriting process.

At the heart of this research is an artistic project: Within the scope of modern Natural Language Processing, we will use GPT-3 as a collaborative AI in order to produce an artistic output: A 3-part mini-series screenplay.

Within each of these productions, the participants, together with the AI will respond to a given theme that relates to our interactions with AI.

This project will present an interdisciplinary and artistic pilot project, congregating a team of filmmakers, film studies scholars, philosophers, and sociologists. We aim for an inclusive approach to develop different models of collaboration. In this project, the team aims to discuss the artistic, technical, pedagogical, social and political implications of using machine learning in the process of writing a screenplay beyond the opportunities that startup companies in the Silicon Valley are promising.

From this artistic project, a broader approach will unfold starting from the question, that emerging technologies always deal with the unknown and unforeseen. Accordingly, we propose to critically question and discover the creative potential of collaboration with machines. There is a constant reflective exchange between the artistic project and the critical approach, where we seek to understand how the role of the creator is changing. 

We consist of a variety of researchers from different disciplines and with distinct academic interests. We value this diversity and propose a methodology for working that allows for group debate and reflection in repeating stages during the research. We also decided on the three themes to allow our individual expertise to intersect in different, and hopefully surprising ways. This transdisciplinary approach will be framed as a type of co-creation which includes machines.

From the perspective of philosophical fields, such as “philosophy of art” as well as “philosophy of technology” our objective is to examine the nature of creativity, the differences between simulation of creativity and creativity itself, and what is it that is actually being created in a “natural language processing” (NLP) system.

From a sociological side, our objective is to re-think authorship and the way creativity is organized. In this respect, we also aim to consider the material and political implications of the use of A.I. for artistic production, considerations that go beyond questions of authorship in order to examine the ways in which the consumer also becomes producer.

From a pedagogical side, our objective is to study the creative potential of AI together with BA students from the different educational institutes affiliated to this research. Through LARPing workshops, we aim to generate cross-cultural input for the project, while also creating case-studies of this student-AI-collaboration.

Machine Acts – Creative Collaboration with GTP-3 will run 20 months from June 2022 till December 2023 under the Horizon Europe project FilmEU_RIT (H2020: 101035820).

people

Tobias Frühmorgen – ULHT
Coordinator
Research areas: Storytelling, Artificial Intelligence

Patrícia Sequeira Brás – ULHT
Head Researcher
Research areas: Film and critical theory; cultural studies

Vincent Thornhill – LUCA – KULeuven
Co-coordinator
Research areas: Computational photography, Automation

Frank Maet – LUCA – KULeuven
Research areas: Philosophy of Art; Philosophy of Technology

Liina Keevallik – BFM
Research areas: Philosophy of Art; Philosophy of Technology

Rita Grácio – ULHT
Research areas: #Sociology of arts and culture

Carina Erdmann – LUCA – KULeuven
Research areas: Game Design, Non-linear Narration, Metaphysical Worlding

Veronica Romhany – LUCA – KULeuven
Research areas: Self-reflective collaborative art practice

contact

info@machineacts.com

FILMEU – The European University for Film and Media Arts
#Project: 101004047, EPP-EUR-UNIV-2020 – European Universities, EPLUS2020 Action Grant

FILMEU_RIT Research | Innovation | Transformation#H2020-IBA-SwafS-Support-2-2020, Ref: 101035820

and

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