{"id":14622,"date":"2023-08-17T22:25:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T22:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hexagram.ca\/?p=14622"},"modified":"2025-02-25T14:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T19:09:19","slug":"demo35-sofian-audry-tez-xenolalia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hexagram.ca\/en\/demo35-sofian-audry-tez-xenolalia\/","title":{"rendered":"DEMO35 Sofian Audry & TeZ – Xenolalia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 2023<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Xenolalia<\/em> is an artscience project created by Sofian Audry [co-investigator member, UQAM] and TeZ [collaborator member] that investigates computational and biological sentience through a live experiment. The work brings together an artificial neural network and a colony of living microorganisms in a feedback loop where they collaborate to generate a speculative living alphabet. This process is rendered through a series of displays at micro, meso and macro scales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The alphabet is created using an iterative morphogenetic process involving a generative artificial neural network and a colony of light-responsive microorganisms. The neural network generates a glyph which is projected on the petri dish. Attracted by light, the microorganisms move towards the shape, acting as a living photographic substrate. The image they form is captured and sent back to the neural network, which generates another image in response. By repeating this interactive conversation between the neural network and the Euglena gracilis<\/em> micro-algae colony, a hybrid computational-biological symbol slowly comes into being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visitors of this bio-artificial hybrid observatory witness an unusual form of communication and the unfolding of a generative alphabet of a speculative language, left to be interpreted by humans. The system suggests prospective forms of interactions between computational, carbon-based, and even xenobiological entities, which could potentially emerge in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The concept<\/u><\/em><\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The renaissance of artificial intelligence through its commercialization since the mid-2000s has triggered a mix of fear and excitement. In particular, the recent successes of AI are due to the advent of deep learning, a machine learning approach based on artificial neural networks that are able to learn from information. This disruptive technology is redefining our conceptions of cognition, creativity, life, and language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the relationship between life, symbols, language, cognition, intelligence, and consciousness? How do symbols emerge within different scopes: in cells, brains, and societies? In particular, are symbols and languages \u201calive\u201d and if so, in what way? In Xenolalia, the artists approach these questions by involving three kinds of entities in the creation of a new set of symbols: (1) a deep learning system known as an auto-encoder neural network; (2) a microscopic colony of photosynthetic organisms known as Euglena gracilis who hypothetically possess a form of proto-consciousness; and (3) the macroscopic presence of human observers who project their own meaning upon the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The research-creation process of the work is guided by the questions and provides the method of inquiry, whereas the work itself acts as a response. These different forms of life interact with one another symbiotically and come to \u201cimagine\u201d new glyphs, thus generating a \u201cliving alphabet\u201d in real time. These glyphs conceptually form a new vocabulary for the spectators, who thus become witnesses to an uncanny form of communication which they have to decode and interpret. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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