Art Matters: Art, AI, Sustainability

About the event

ART MATTERS is an artistic research event that critically examines the intersections of AI, sustainability, aesthetics and ethics. Through a postdigital lens, the event questions the entanglement of digital and physical realms, emphasizing that AI is not separate from material reality but deeply rooted in it. Rather than abandoning digitality, we aim to interrogate it from within – bringing together perspectives from artistic practice, academic research, and cultural institutions.

Digital technologies – especially Artificial Intelligence – are often framed as immaterial and abstract. However, their deployment depends heavily on natural and human resources such as silicon, copper, lithium, water, and energy. This project challenges the prevailing perception of AI as “immaterial” by investigating the material foundations, extractive processes, and value chains upon which it relies. Rather than a history of production, current developments in art should be read as one of the consumption of planetary resources.

Art has the potential to both obscure and expose these material underpinnings. On the one hand, artistic production depends on its own infrastructures and resource consumption; on the other hand, art possesses a unique aesthetic capacity to make audiences aware of the contradictions and implications of technological progress. In this sense, the Art Matters project acts not only as cultural expression, but as a material practice embedded in economic, ethical, legal and ecological networks.

Attendance and Registration

Upon registration: The Workshop on 7 October is intended for academics and artists with a connection to the subject.

Open to Public: The Performance Lecture and Keynote on 6 October as well as the Concert on 7 October are open to a broader audience. No registration is required for these events.

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