Art, Nature and Artificial Intelligence

From CIFRA: In this playlist, artists explore nature through the lens of Artificial Intelligence. They use different AI tools to turn seeds into pixels, transport endangered species into virtual worlds, and give voices to fungi. From Curator Rebecca Pedrazzi: This curatorial corner explores the intersections between three dimensions - art, nature and AI - analyzing how new aesthetics and contents have evolved in recent years. In the digital age, technological innovation merges with creativity to shape new artistic frontiers giving rise to a new bond of aesthetic languages rich in meanings. Nature, with its extraordinary variety of shapes, colours and sizes, has been source of inspiration for artists throughout centuries. Now, with the help of AI as a tool or a collaborator at the artist's disposal, we are in a historical moment of absolute artistic experimentation. Since the first experiments with GANs - Generative Adversarial Networks - we witness the birth of works of art which explore new languages half between morphing aesthetics and recognizable - but never defined - forms. And today, with generative AI, we can observe an increasingly definition-oriented production. We know that the humus for Artificial Intelligence to flourish is a massive computing power and proliferation of datasets, but we have to acknowledge these artists all the potential of these new technologies that they have been able to merge into their artistic productions - beginning with computer and generative art, and finally with AI. We start with a leading figure of the digital world: Davide Maria Coltro, a pioneer of technological art who takes us to explore what he himself calls "painting beyond matter", and there to face the technological canvas, the digital medium in which nature is handed back to all its ancestral and spiritual powers. Vincenzo Marsiglia is among the first to reason about the digital and physical encounter of human beings with a view to reflected in his art the union of intent and soul. Through his works and through his innovative use of Hololens 2 we explore the topic of nature, AI, and photography. Martin Romeo is an Italian-Argentine visual artist who explores the relationship between nature and technology through various mediums, including Murano glass sculptures, virtual reality performances, and multimedia installations. Among his works I chose his “anthropic cloud” : a video that through a cloud represents the pollution due to air traffic. Debora Hirsh is a Brazilian born artist who started her artistic production with physical works, than she landed on digital, and thereafter she successfully experimented with AI focusing on endangered plants. Combining painting, digital and artificial intelligence, the artist creates a language of colour and elegance to represent these endangered botanical treasures. Lino Strangis Lino Strangis is a multimedia artist (video art, video installations and video-sculptures, virtual reality, intermedial performances, 3D sculptures, video-scenographies, sound art) and with his works he brings us to discover both the scenarios between nature and artifice and an important reflection on the conscious use of AI with its regenerated AI thus limiting the impact of CO2 production for new trainings. As for Marco Barotti - as he explains - the primary focus of his work is “to create a “tech ecosystem” that plays with resemblances to animals and plants”. He combines sound and visual art with kinetic installations in his artistic production, telling us about the post-futurist era and reflecting the impact of technology on the planet. Through his artistic production – among digital artworks, AI videos and virtual spaces - the artist Manuel Macadamia accompanies us to discover how an anthological project - SUNSET - can now become a 3.0 art project that also leads to discover the new creative potential of AI and to reflect on topical issues. Antonio Barbieri artistic research aims to analyse the changing in life forms: the way they do structure and change on the course of time. Through his work we rediscover the mosaic art framed in a modern way and in connection with the theme “nature”. THE CURATORS MILAN is a collective of creative people driven by resilience, empathy and a desire for the future. They conceived REWILD, a non-profit social project, with the aim to make people think about Climate Change issues, using art and new technologies. EEGUN is a young and talented generative artist who combines nature and avant-garde techniques in his works. Eegun's works tell us about systems of beauty: animals, plants and pixels towards new immersive experiments. This selection aims to demonstrate how artists today, through their work and access to scientific research, celebrate the beauty of nature, highlight conservation, show climate change effects, and inspire respect for the environment.