Talks & Performances at World Science Festival Brisbane
Whether you realise it or not, artificial intelligence (AI) is a constant digital companion, relied upon for everything from intelligent inboxes to home security, online shopping and entertainment, healthcare, banking and social media apps.
For World Science Festival Brisbane 2021, the Goethe-Institut teams up with Queensland AI Hub to co-present a thought-provoking series of free talks and performances on AI, Culture and Creativity. Importantly, underscoring why rapid technological developments in our increasingly digital world can only be truly transformative with everyone in the loop. People from all walks of life, cultural backgrounds, and fields of expertise.
With the guidance of popular science communicator Lee Constable – a maestro at mixing STEM with media, social justice, and the arts in innovative and unconventional ways – we invite you to meet and engage with a diverse group of ‘Cultural Champions in the Age of AI’.
10.00 am – 11.30 am: Panel Discussion Music and AI: Experiments & Eurovision
Sydney’s music, sound and technology company Uncanny Valley has decades of experience in the music industry, composing countless briefs for original and remix commercial music projects. With their strategic academic partnerships they forge the path between artists and technology. They won the first ever AI Song Contest with their track Beautiful the World, have an ongoing collaboration with Google’s Creative Lab Sydney on ML tools for Musicians, are behind the creative intelligence of the generative music engine memu, and provide advice for university academics and high level music industry professionals.
In this panel, Uncanny Valley’s co-founders, Justin Shave and Charlton Hill join forces with Griffith University’s Professor of Digital Arts, Andrew R. Brown. No stranger to ‘algo-raves’ or live-coding performance, Andrew is a computer musician and computational artist, with research expertise in the modelling of creative intelligence, aesthetics of computational processes, and the design of generative and interactive audio-visual experiences. Panellists:
Justin Shave – Uncanny Valley Co-Founder/Music Producer & Sonic Technologist
Charlton Hill – Uncanny Valley Co-Founder/Head of Music & Innovation
Andrew Brown (Griffith University) – Computer Musician/Computational Artist
Moderated by STEM+ Champion/Science Communicator Lee Constable
11.30am – 12.30pm: Live Performance Making Music with Machines
Having relocated to Australia from the US, Joseph Burgess is an electronic musician who performs and records under the name Unregistered Master Builder. In this mind-blowing session, Burgess performs a live set that innovatively bridges the gap between analogue and digital – employing a violin, modular synths, an AI plug-in which harvests melodic content from an eclectic array of sources, and a self-made patch for sound reactive real-time rendering of 3D objects.
12.30pm – 2.00pm: Panel Discussion AI Narratives & The Wonder of ‘Why’?
How we talk about AI – its risks and benefits – has never been more important. Misinformed or exaggerated debate not only affects public confidence, but can ultimately impact on ways AI is developed, adopted, and regulated. To be truly effective as a transformative technology intended to augment and extend human potential for the good of all people and our planet, AI needs to draw the widest possible range of voices and skill sets into its development and design.
In this panel, we invite you to channel the curiosity of your inner four-year-old, setting aside entrenched perceptions – or confusion – around AI. It’s time to rediscover the Wonder of ‘Why?’, engaging with a visionary collective committed to breaking down barriers that limit accessibility to the benefits of AI, while also creating unexpected new public spaces for authentic and meaningful dialogues. Not least being through a globally unique urban art initiative that pairs Queensland’s leading AI experts with up-and-coming street artists. Panellists:
Dr Sally Shrapnel (University of Queensland) – Interdisciplinary scientist working at the interface of causality and machine learning, and currently the lead on an international COVID19-related study, using AI to predict kidney injury
Lincoln Savage – Creative Director at Vast Yonder, the experiential agency behind Brisbane Street Art Festival
Damien Kamholtz – Multidisciplinary artist featured in Yonder Festival and Brisbane Street Art Festival
Prof Janet Wiles (University of Queensland) – Specialises in human-robot interactions, language technologies, bio-inspired computation, visualisation and AI, complex systems modelling in biology and neuroscience, human memory, language, and cognition.
Moderated by: STEM+ Champion/Science Communicator Lee Constable
Take a deep dive into the future… Now! You don’t need a DeLorean Time Machine to venture back to the future. Step inside ‘The Precinct’ – aka heritage-listed T.C. Beirne Building and former department store (circa 1902) – and prepare to be WOW-ed by its transformation into Queensland’s leading brains trust of disruptive innovators, mentors and entrepreneurs. All focused on the shared goal of building a smarter/better future for all people and our planet. The Precinct forms a centrepiece of the Queensland Government’s Advance Queensland initiative. Queensland AI Hub is one of The Precinct’s tenants.
And for those who are wondering what the song that won the AI Eurovision Song Contest for Uncanny Valley sounded like... here it is:
