︎ Granted by the Arts Council Korea Art&Technology
︎ Leading the project

<Lightbox Garden Project> proposes a new critical framework for analyzing contemporary artwork and practices mediating and mediated by data and algorithms. In this regard, we archive a variety of impressive examples of such work and present our in-depth critiques based on the framework.

Our first part of the critique explores how the field of art has been attracted to quantitative data and has produced a broad spectrum of ‘data visualizations’. However, in the process of quantifying the empirical experience and interpretations of human lives and society, gaps between objects and data have been ignored and undiscussed. We present the creative works of pioneering artists like Giorgia Lupi, Lauren McCarthy, Mimi Onuoha and Laurie Frick who cast a question and problematize the underexplored areas.

In the second chapter, we focus on the intermingling of art and the
algorithm of artificial intelligence by disassembling the ‘black-boxed’ relationships of input, data, and output. Through the works of Kate Crawford & Trevor Paglen, Philipp Schmitt, Zach Blas, and others, we observe the divergence of art + AI algorithm in which the connection of them evolves into an anti-algorithmic connection.

Lastly, we highlight the role of AI in contemporary art creation and practices, such as media and collaborators of works.

This report serves as an initial reference for archiving critical approaches to art + technology from various disciplines. Consequently, Lightbox Garden Project hopes to stimulate profound and critical problem-raising, networking, and discussion around the convergence of data, algorithms, and art.