Going from Art to Artificial Consciousness
Sculptures, circuits, and essays tracking one question: can a machine ever be conscious?
The story of why I’m on Substack is one that takes some turns. For the last four years, I have been working as a full-time artist. That was a decision I made later in life; I had two other careers, but the craving to create finally won. So I started when I was forty. That is an interesting age to start a new career because you come equipped with half a life of experience from the outset. The artist career is a complex one, and although I had some observer experience there, I now had to get adjusted to a new vantage point: being one.
In addition to evolving as an artist, from paintings to sculptures to installations, I also had to learn how galleries function, how collectors work, and maybe most important of all, how this entire industry is kept together by subjectivity and hype. Coming from a scientific and technology background, that didn’t immediately land. So I read all I could to help me figure this out. If you didn’t already know, there is quite a volume of books written about the art world, its market, and how to become a successful artist. But over the last four years, I can see how that was some people’s experience, but not mine. I couldn’t help but feel it didn’t apply to me in this current moment.
In my time as a full-time artist, I saw the closure of some of the biggest galleries. I saw small galleries work hard and keep their head just above the water, and others drown. I was beginning to believe this was just the status quo of the art world. A high attrition rate where galleries made leaps from hype to hype. It didn’t feel far-fetched, but it felt like something was missing. I like to see patterns, and this one didn’t make sense to me.
It wasn’t until I picked up the book “I Eat the Stars”, by accident, that I began seeing a pattern. The book, written by Sarah Wilson, talks about the collapse of society. And, if I may conclude, that this is beyond saving and should be met with shaping the future of the life that comes after that. That felt right. Like so many of the people that commented on this book, it felt like it put something in place. And I think I could see the ripple extend to the art world.
The art world really does move from hype to hype. It also really does rely on subjectivity and a little magic to make it run. But what I was seeing is that in a society that collapses, the meaning of art changes. In an age of abundance, art is decorative and status-elevating. Pieces are bought to show support for the arts as much as to show off to peers. We have been in one age of abundance or another for quite a while. But over the last decade or so, this has been waning. When wealth is unequally concentrated in so few people, is art still about status and support to artists? I think the answer is an obvious “no” to me. It seems that art needs to shift from being made for collectors to being a voice of critique for the society that shapes it. And that is a shift that comes with its challenges.
Not in the least: how do you afford critical art? Unless you come from wealth, and let’s be fair, if you do, you probably still hold the point of view that art is status-supporting, you will find it difficult to make ends meet. Funds that aimed at supporting artists are disappearing. Ireland is making a good case for how much universal basic income makes sense for artists, but I fear this is more the exception than the rule. I would be surprised if it would spark a new wave of policy (though I would be happy to be proven wrong!).
So we live in a time where we are subject to societal collapse, and we see the role of art moving to a role that bites its funding. That is a catch-22 situation. And I am in it. Do I revert from making big installations to making small paintings? So I can enjoy a steady income from the emerging class that can afford to buy these works and who all too much want to follow in the footsteps of the wealthy. Or do I push through with my work to make a critical point of where technology is going, and give up making money? You’d find that this choice is more binary than any of us would like it to be.
That brings us to now. Facing that choice, I realize I am lucky. I sold everything I had to start my career as a full-time artist back then, and I have a husband who supports me both mentally and financially. In that puddle of luck, what can I do to fulfill my duty as an artist in this society?
The plan isn’t clear yet, but I am here to try something. I want to begin writing about one of the scariest developments ever to face humankind, and that is arriving at our doorstep: artificial consciousness. We are so used to talking about artificial intelligence that we would almost forget that it’s a whole different game when we talk about actual consciousness.
The subject is not new to me. In my work, I focus a lot on unintelligent machines that give the appearance of being more than the sum of their parts. As if something intelligent is taking place, while being transparent that it is not, as a commentary on our collective belief that tools like ChatGPT must be intelligent because it tells me I’m right. Building the concepts for these works introduced me to philosophy of mind and cybernetics. Combined with my own background in medicine, that makes for a mix that has me thinking a lot about whether artificial consciousness is a thing, and if it is, what it would look like.
Coming back to the role of an artist in this society, would this be the critique I could add my voice to? Share my insights, bring people along on my findings, rake up an opinion or two. About six months ago, that resulted in a silent “yes,” and I poured myself into creating more works. But let’s be realistic, these are hard concepts to understand, and looking at an installation doesn’t mean I am helping anyone think twice about how smart, or not, our technology out there is.
That’s when the idea came around to start writing about it. In addition to constructing my artworks, I want to write about the concepts that I’m trying to make people think about. And, for a moment, I want to forget about the gallery, the collector, and the grants, and focus on my duty as an artist in a society that is drastically changing. And write about a matter that has taken hold of my interest and has refused to let me go: artificial consciousness.
© dirkes.studio