Critical videology (Excentricit.AI 2)

The field of moving images is undergoing a major transformation brought about by the development of Artificial Intelligence and generative video technologies. Beyond the problems of deep fake and the fears that these technologies arouse within the creative industries, we propose to reflect on the aesthetic and critical stakes of generative video, by asking how it fits into the history of the moving image, and what specific features it introduces into the link between image and reality, and in particular the relationship with the body and embodied experience. Based on machine learning using vast quantities of images and artificial vision techniques, generative video is a new tool for modeling the imaginary in the service of dominant datapolitics. But it can also be the site of an exploration of new limits of representation, revealing a zone of indeterminacy in the image that is difficult to reduce, and which manifests a critical potential at the heart of AI's ideal of computational totality. It is these videological limits that interest us. We will analyze them on the basis of artworks and theoretical texts, allowing also time for videographic experimentations.

Some sessions of this Think Zone will be organized in partnership with Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel's Digital Humanities seminar at Unige.

Critical Videology also extends the aesthetic and anthropological-philosophical reflection initiated in the 2023/2024 “Excentricit.AI” seminar.

images: Gwenola Wagon, Chroniques du soleil noir, vidéo, 2023.