Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this event will be held online. The program will take place via Zoom. Register to receive a link to join.​

British-born, Seattle-based artist James Coupe creates artworks that examine the often unseen and unacknowledged impact of surveillance and artificial intelligence on our everyday lives. Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, is a leading computer scientist and poet of code who uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of artificial intelligence. Join us virtually for an evening with Coupe and Buolamwini, who will discuss deep fake images, algorithmic justice, and artificial intelligence amidst the age of digital surveillance.

This program is held in conjunction with ICP’s exhibition James Coupe: Warriors. The exhibition features three news works that revisit Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic film The Warriors to explore contested notions of community, race, gender, and class in the twenty-first century. Hill’s film is set “sometime in the future,” in a New York beset with white supremacist and xenophobic hatred, police brutality, and massive economic inequality. Coupe updates The Warriors by using deepfake algorithms to populate key scenes from the film with museum visitors’ faces, inserted into gangs on the basis of data-driven analysis of their demographic, economic, and occupational markers. 

This program will take place on  Zoom. Those who register to attend will receive an email with a link to join the lecture through a computer or mobile device prior to the program start time. We recommend participants download the Zoom app on their device prior to the program. Learn how to download the latest version of Zoom to your computer or mobile device.

For more questions about the virtual lecture, please contact: programs@icp.org.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Please note audio, video, and other information sent during this Zoom session may be recorded. By joining this session, you automatically consent to such recordings. If you do not consent to being recorded, please turn off your video sharing within the application or consider not joining the session. You can also discuss your concerns with the host. Thank you.

About Reimagining the Image

This series examines film, photography, and new media from the artist’s perspective. Taking lens-based work as a starting point, Reimagining the Image invites in imagemakers who pose new questions about the social function of photography, use alternative and emerging practices, and ask critical questions about the form.

Bios

James Coupe is a Seattle-based artist who works with a broad range of media, including real-time public surveillance systems, live social media content, and most recently, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a global workforce of micro-laborers. Reflecting on the impact of Big Data, immaterial labor, and AI, Coupe’s works explore the aesthetic value of searches and queries, automation, the use of algorithmic narratives, surplus information, and human affect. He has been exhibited at venues including ZKM, FACT, the Prix Ars Electronica, and the Toronto International Film Festival/Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art.

Joy Buolamwini is a computer scientist and poet of code who uses art and research to illuminate the social implications of artificial intelligence. She founded the Algorithmic Justice League to create a world with more equitable and accountable technology. Her TED Featured Talk on algorithmic bias has over 1 million views. Her MIT thesis methodology uncovered large racial and gender bias in AI services from companies like Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon. In addition to advising elected officials during US congressional hearings, she serves on the Global Tech Panelto advise world leaders and executives on reducing AI harms.

Joy’s journey is depicted in the feature-length documentary Coded Bias which sheds lights on threats A.I. poses to civil rights and democracy. She has written op-eds on the impact of AI for publications like Time magazine and the New York Times. Her spoken word visual audit "AI, Ain't I A Woman?" which shows AI failures on the faces of iconic women like Serena Williams, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama has been part of exhibitions ranging from Ars Electronica to the Barbican Centre, UK. A Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Fellow, Joy has been named to notable lists including the Bloomberg 50, Forbes Top 50 Women in Tech, and Fortune Magazine named her "the conscience of the AI revolution." She holds graduate degrees from Oxford University and MIT; and a bachelor's from the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

 

Image: © James Coupe