MIA Art Collection’s virtual museum MIA Anywhere to host Ai-Da robot’s art exhibition, the world’s first artistic robot.
Named after Ada Lovelace, the first female computer programmer, Ai-Da is the world’s first ultra-realistic AI robot artist, and she is having her first solo virtual exhibition in MIA Art Collection’s virtual museum MIA ANYWHERE.
The exhibition that is hosting MIA’s virtual museum is called “Unencountered Expression: The Art of Ai-Da Robot’, and includes drawings, painting and video. Despite being a humanoid machine, Ai-da has a persona that we relate and respond to.
In these unprecedented times of COVID19, virtual meetings and working from home routines, online avatars, and Alexa and Siri – Ai-da as a robotic artist is acutely relevant, where situations of confusing realities are already part of our daily lives: Who are we speaking to on online platforms? What algorithms are working behind our internet choices? Ai-Da highlights those tensions: Is she an artist in her own right? Is she an avatar or a fictional character? All these options bring powerfully to the forefront the complexity of our interacting digital and physical worlds and the masked identities we can assume in both.
Ai-Da uses AI/human inputs to communicate through spoken word and text, and she uses cameras in her eyes and AI algorithms to draw portraits, which she creates in physical form through her robotic arm. In addition to her drawing techniques, she is also a performance artist. As a humanoid robot, she is an art object in herself, raising questions surrounding biotechnology and transhumanism.
“Pioneering a new aI art movement, we are excited to present Ai-Da, the first professional humanoid artist, who created her own art, as well as being a performance artist. As an AI robot, her artwork uses AI processes and algorithms. The work engages us to think about AI and technological uses and abuses in the world today” – Aidan Meller, director.
Ai-Da was devised in Oxford, and built in Cornwall, by Engineered Arts. Her first show was at the University of Oxford in 2019, and since then, she has traveled the world with exhibitions and doing interviews, including a workshop with Sadie Clayton at the Tate Exchange, Tate Modern, an interview with Tim Marlow, and a TEDx talk. From October 21st to November 4th, Ai-da’s artwork will be shown at the ‘Unencountered expression: The Art of Ai-Da robot’ exhibition at MIA Anywhere, (www.miaanywhere.com) MIA Art collection’s virtual museum, 24/7, for free.