The 2023 Edition of Vancouver International Film Festival ran from September 28 to October 8. VIFF Live was a series of events curated to platform artists who sought to expand beyond the cinematic experience.
The first event at VIFF Live, “Machine Folklore” showcased an audio-visual exploration of the intersection of artificial intelligence and virtual consciousness to see humanity through non-human eyes. The show was presented by interdisciplinary artist collectives from Taiwan – Software20250 and NAXS FUTURE. Much like the programme description, VIFF executive director Kyle Fostner’s introductory remarks alluded to “avante-garde communality”, “infinite possibilities of future aesthetics” and “self-aware AI”. Excited, my partner and I waited for the show to begin as a thin cloud of smoke was pumped out for light effects. What ensued was one hour of mind-numbing abstract visuals accompanied by distorted choppy noises that could not be appreciated by my mere human sensibilities.
The visuals could best be described as 2014-ish AI generated images, unpolished and ghoulish, converted into little video clips that looped over and over in 4-5 minute scenes before clunkily transforming into yet another. I wished I could travel back in time to the early 2000’s when media players such as Winamp had more sophisticated visualizations that complemented audio streaming. With “Machine Folklore”, I could barely tell if there was a progression in the unending loops, and I couldn’t even detect a transition between scenes.
An ambiguous attempt at art such as this might ideally engage audiences in unique and meandering stimuli. So instead of analyzing the artistic merit, I tried to listen to my inner thoughts during the show. The first few moments were filled with hope as I allowed the graphic abstractions to create my own meta-narrative about the performance. This attempt soon lulled me into nihilistic ponderings about dystopian attempts at robotic communion. My partner had to walk out in the middle because his ears hurt from the loudness we weren’t warned about. The lights had potential, but in actuality were unenthusiastic and did not elevate the visuals.
In an era when AI (like ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion and DALL-e) are pervading our cultural landscape, “Machine Folklore” felt jarring and out of touch. To gain some context about what’s out there, I looked up work of artists like Ryan Kelln and Vladim Epstein among others, who have thought provoking art in audio-video format that are sensorily captivating and more relevant attempts at AI-inspired art.
– Annapoorna Shruthi