CIRCULAR DIFFUSION by Adam Harvey
Image credit: Circular Diffusion N°2-5. © Adam Harvey 2022
Circular Diffusion by Adam Harvey
One of five artistic experiments commission by The New Real as part of the development of The New Real Observatory platform – a creative AI platform combining raw satellite data and climate modelling with AI processing engines.
In this new work Adam Harvey reflects on the perils and possibilities of generative AI technologies and their unavoidable relationship to energy and propaganda. The collection of images, titled "Circular Diffusion", references newly developed AI diffusion algorithms, their power to automate the production of awe-inspiring imagery, and the circular logic of extrapolation.
AI is often considered a hopeful technology with unlimited problem solving capabilities. But new solutions create new problems. When GANs and Generative AI are applied to climate change they produce non-scientific output cloaked in scientific language. Further, using generative AI to address climate change can multiply the existing problem: mitigating climate change means reducing energy, but developing AI requires vast amounts of it.
The images in Circular Diffusion refer back to the energy waste of their generative production by using this very system to “diffuse” and propagate an ascendant and sustainable version of itself by cloaking the context in the latent space of classical art and greenwashing stock imagery.
Part of The New Real Observatory
How can AI be made more easily usable in tools and systems for the creative sector, to connect science and data to applications and impacts in the real world? In The New Real Observatory, artists, scientists and festivals together explore the potential for creativity and cutting edge AI to build better futures for people and the planet, and answer the urgent challenges of COVID-19 and the climate emergency. Five artistic prototypes informed the development of a prototype climate AI platform combining raw satellite data and climate modelling with AI processing engines.
Adam Harvey is developing an 'off platform' exploration into the possibilities for artistic practice to augment legibility in AI systems.
About the artist
Adam Harvey (US/DE) is a researcher and artist based in Berlin focused on computer vision, privacy, and surveillance technologies. He received his masters degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University (2010) and a BA in Integrative Arts from Pennsylvania State University (2004). His previous work includes CV Dazzle (camouflage from face recognition), the Anti-Drone Burqa (camouflage from thermal cameras), SkyLift (geolocation spoofing device), and Exposing.ai (interrogating face recognition datasets). His art and research has been featured widely in media publications including BBC, Economist, New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Wall Street Journal; and exhibited at Aksioma (SI), Frankfurter Kunstwerein (DE), and Walker Art Center (US). Harvey is the founder of VFRAME.io, a software project that innovates computer vision technology for human rights researchers and investigative journalist, which received an award of distinction from Ars Electronica and nomination for a Beazley Design of the Year award in 2019.