The artists Refik Anadol and Cao Fei are among the judges of an ambitious new art and technology Fellowship programme launched by the Serpentine Gallery in London. The first four fellows—Alice Bucknell, Reina Mun, Alfredo Salazar-Caro and Auriea Harvey—will each receive £10,000 and mentorship. They will travel to London this month to start a six-month research programme “exploring how advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are reshaping cultural production, institutions and public life”.
The Future Art Ecosystems R&D Fellowship facilitates “the inquiries of four pioneering practitioners across art and technology, connecting creative research and development with industry, academia and policy to shape how emerging technologies are developed, understood and used”, a gallery statement says. Other judges include Lila Ibrahim, the chief operating officer of Google DeepMind, and Mariana Mazzucato, a professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London.
The Los-Angeles based artist Bucknell will develop Medium Sized World, a research project focused on AI systems that simulate environments and predict future outcomes; Mun, a doctoral researcher at Harvard, examines what “AI enhancement means, who defines it and how its effects can be meaningfully evaluated”.
Salazar-Caro, from Mexico, will examine post-digital architectures by exploring “artistic experimentation, cultural continuity and regenerative worldbuilding” and the Italian sculptor Harvey looks at craft and authorship in the age of algorithmic production.
The Fellowship programme is backed by Glass Castle, a new philanthropic organisation chaired by the hedge fund tycoon and co-founder of the investment firm Quadrature Capital, Suneil Setiya. According to The Times, Quadrature Capital donated £4m to the Labour party before the 2024 General Election.
Bettina Korek, the chief executive of the Serpentine, says in a statement: “This Fellowship builds the connective tissue between art and emerging technology, so they develop together rather than in sequence. Future Art Ecosystems has been building towards this approach since 2019. Our partnership with Suneil Setiya and Glass Castle Foundation, now deepened by his joining Serpentine as a trustee, reflects the kind of long-term commitment this work requires.”
The Serpentine continues to ramp up its tech offering, also announcing a multi-year collaboration with the Italian design studio Formafantasma, who have been appointed ecology advisors. “The partnership strengthens Serpentine’s long-term commitment to embedding environmental thinking across its programme, operations and organisational culture,” a statement says.
Meanwhile, an open-access archive display entitled processing…, which presents the experimental methodologies and developments behind the Serpentine’s art and technologies programme, is on show in the education space at Serpentine South until 6 September.
