With FutureFantastic, art goes the AI way

FutureFantastic gives us a peek of art in tech

Art shed its staid, sedate demeanour and jumped onto the digital bandwagon a couple of years ago; the rest of the world woke up to that fact sometime during the pandemic and has been making up for lost time since. Suddenly, a whole new cyber world opened up a vista of possibilities for the artistically, AI-inclined.

If you think you have missed that train, there is still a chance you can hop on. This weekend will see Bengaluru host an exhibition where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is virtually (pun intended) the canvas on/ through which art has been rendered. These projects are a part of FutureFantastic, a tech-art festival that uses AI, interactive art and live performances to shine a spotlight on global challenges such as climate change.

This AI Tech art festival was conceptualised by BeFantastic in partnership with FutureEverything (UK) as a multi-venue event where artistes have embraced AI in some form or other to tell stories of climate change. It is part of British Council’s India/UK Together, Season of Culture initiative.

“Essentially, we’re trying to explore whether art and technology coming together can become a new and interesting medium for storytelling. And the stories we want to tell are on different aspects of this complex concept called climate change,” says Kamya Ramachandran, Festival Director and Co-Curator of FutureFantastic.

While new media arts is an established vertical in the Western art world, most senior artists in India are wary of using technology for art. “However, younger ones are learning some of it in college at a rudimentary level. That is where we come in. Over the last few years, we’ve run workshops where artists can play with technology to create something interesting.”

It is a shift in perspective, not just for an artist who learns to use technology, but also for technologists who apply scientific know-how in art, says Kamya. “This is about blurring these boundaries to work with each other and go to an interesting place of innovation,”

According to Kamya, two purposes are achieved — one, artists are upskilled to be relevant in the digital age, and second, interested people learn from each other. “The peer-learning, knowledge-sharing space is important; since experts in AI have only 2-3 years of experience under their belt, a peer learning community is being built.”