Ether’s Bloom: A Programme on Artificial Intelligence

Taking place both online and offline, the Gropius Bau’s first programme on artificial intelligence (AI) focuses on AI’s utopian and poetic possibilities. From June 2023, the first part of the programme, Ether’s Bloom, kicks off a sequence of new projects including a Writer in Residence, artistic explorations, a podcast, lectures and conversations. The development of an app with a special focus on education and accessibility forms the programme’s second part.

The Programme Ether’s Bloom
 

Ether’s Bloom is inspired by new Writer in Residence K Allado-McDowell. Current AI models tend to hallucinate and give answers rather than formulate questions, despite the centrality of questioning and speculation to creative work and discourse. Ether’s Bloom focuses on a programme of artistic investigation and speculation on artificial intelligence in close collaboration with artists, writers and scientists.

Encouraging the aspects of learning and knowledge sharing, the AI podcast Beyond and Within: AI Talks takes listeners through a journey of questions, analysis and knowledge exploring the many sides to these growing technologies including closer looks at feelings, art, institutional spaces, the future of humans and embodiment. These initiatives will open up discussions about artificial intelligence, its ethics and practices, while adopting an intergenerational and intersectional viewpoint.

Development of an AI-based app
 

The second part of the programme consists of the development of an app that is partly AI-assisted to provide structural support and make visiting the Gropius Bau more accessible. The app, partly emerging from the various activities in Ether’s Bloom, emphasises on accessibility and different kinds of intelligences and is conceived as an important complement to the Gropius Bau’s existing educational programme. Supporting serviceability and shared learning for users and visitors, it also provides infrastructure for AI-based educational formats in a way that is sustainable and can be used in the future.