BKABF, After AI, Data Centers, & personal news
Dear Readers,
I will be tabling at this year’s Brooklyn Art Book Fair the weekend of the 11th.
I’ll be at table R04 in the Recess location :)
I’ll have some older prints/publications but a couple new projects too!
July 8 Data Center Town Hall in Rockland County, NY
Wednesday July 8th, I will attend a Town Hall meeting about a Data Center Project in my hometown in Rockland County, NY. I don’t think I have many readers from Rockland, but if you are you should join! More background info here.
After AI
I interviewed three arts practitioners back in early 2025 about what it means to think, practice and teach critical and creative digital media in the aftermath of the recent boom in Generative AI. Linked here are transcripts from interviews with Maxwell Alper, Moisés Horta Valenzuela (𝔥𝔢𝔵𝔬𝔯𝔠𝔦𝔰𝔪𝔬𝔰), and Dr. Roopa Vasudevan.
This was originally to be part of a larger project called After AI with collaborators at The Experimental Humanities Collaborative Network. But the project has stalled temporarily in its original context. But in the meantime, I thought I'd share the interviews I conducted here as I've found them very insightful.
Original After AI Mandate:
After AI explores what it means to think, practice and teach critical and creative digital media in the aftermath of the recent boom in Generative AI. While forms of digital resistance and aesthetic innovation have accompanied every dominant technological moment, a genuine question has emerged as to whether such a space for critique remains viable. The current wave of Generative AI, characterized by increasingly large “foundation models,” massive training datasets that always require still more data, unprecedented levels of energy-hungry computation, and the convergence of power within a small number of Big Tech companies, restricts the narrow window of experimentation and disruption still available within earlier generations of AI technology. Longstanding traditions of media democratization and community organization, as well as tactical and critical media production techniques, are struggling to mount effective responses to the particular technological conditions of the moment. With this background in mind, the After AI project seeks to provide the following interventions:
Provide pedagogical resources for educators to embrace, get ahead of, or critique the current wave of AI technologies.
Commission interviews with leading scholarly, creative, and political figures trying to navigate the difficulties of the current technological moment.
Catalogue earlier traditions of media critique or creative resistance and discuss their appropriateness and sustainability under the present conditions of AI.
Highlight current creative and scholarly methods, practices, and theories that present promising experimentation and critical development avenues.
Emphasize the divergent global impact, opportunities, and consequences of the current Generative AI boom and the different forms of resistance and critique emerging in different geographic, cultural, or national contexts.
And finally some really exciting personal news:
I’ll be joining NYU this Fall as an Industry Assistant Professor in the Tandon School of Engineering, Department of Technology, Culture, and Society. I’ll be teaching in the Integrated Design and Media program. I’m really honored to be working alongside some truly talented faculty, students and staff.
I hope you are all staying cool and hydrated. Thank you so much for keeping up with me and my work.
In gratitude,
Aarati
Not sure if I'll make it to the fair this weekend- would love to buy your new riso zine via e-payment!! :)