00:00Hi everyone, I'm glad to be here today.
00:05Anne, I'm a partner at ArtPoint, it's a digital art agency that connects visionary leaders, artists with companies for their
00:16spaces, events, but also brand experiences.
00:21What we believe is that art should be in every conversation regarding the future, especially when it comes to technology.
00:31I have to ask you first just one question.
00:36What does it mean to see?
00:39I mean, sometimes you often think of perception as passive, right?
00:45But when you think of it, I mean, seeing is just anything but passive.
00:52It's cultural, it's political, it's emotional, it's shaped by memory, by language, by identity.
01:02So now there's just, we are teaching machines to see.
01:08So the question for me is, whose eyes are we training these machines to see?
01:15And so I would really like to share with you three digital artists that really thought about this question.
01:24And first, to begin with, I'd love to talk to you about just one, but I forgot my machine.
01:34Okay, thank you.
01:36The first one is Trevler Paglin.
01:41Perhaps you know about him.
01:43Trevor is an American artist, and he thought about something very interesting.
01:50He thought about Magritte's work.
01:53Do you remember this one?
01:54This is not a pipe.
01:56Of course, everyone here, I hope, will find the irony there.
02:01We understand the difference between image and the object.
02:06We understand the double meaning in that.
02:08When he looks at that, he made it into an AI.
02:14Look at what the AI just said about this.
02:18Ceci n'est pas une pomme.
02:20We ask the AI, what did it say?
02:24It said 99% sure it's an apple.
02:29What does it mean?
02:31It means that AI simply is not funny, has absolutely no humor, no context whatsoever.
02:41So what the artist is telling us is we will obviously need the human perception and the artist to keep
02:50us laughing.
02:51Another artist that really helps in another side, and not just the joke, is Sasha Stiles.
03:02So Sasha Stiles is very, very interesting because she had a Mongolian mother who was all about oral traditions,
03:12and she had a father who was actually a scientist and who made science films.
03:19So imagine this family, oral tradition, science.
03:24I mean, what work could she be doing?
03:26Well, she thought if AI is becoming our own memory, should we just try to inject poetry in it?
03:39Because if there's only data from all the data that we can get from Google Earth, from everything,
03:46but if there isn't any poems in there, what will be our memory in the future, I'm asking you.
03:53So her idea was creating poems, injecting it into the AI, and creating this fascinating artwork
04:04that was projected in lots of museums, exhibitions.
04:09What she's telling us is, when culture isn't in the data set, let's art, it puts back in.
04:19And then, finally, I'd like to talk to you about this Linda.
04:24Linda is from Senegal.
04:27She was very interested in looking at what the AI has on lots of cities in Senegal.
04:36Do you know what she found out?
04:39She asked the AI, can you please describe me the city where I lived when I was little?
04:45What did she see?
04:47Nothing.
04:49Nothing.
04:50In the data set, you believe that, you know, if you were to think of your city, Paris, for instance,
04:56you would find a trillion of images of the Eiffel Tower.
05:01But if you think of a small path in Dakar, you won't find anything.
05:05So what does it make?
05:07It makes that in the 20 years, 30 years, 100 years time, can we think of what will be history
05:16for these countries?
05:19So what she thought was, well, I have a role to play in the future.
05:24As an artist, I can put data in the AI.
05:28So what she did is, because she was also a scientist, she went and picked up all the flowers that
05:37she could find that did not exist anywhere else.
05:43Sorry, forgot this one.
05:45She was asking herself of what is an image.
05:48And she made photographs and photogrammetry.
05:57It's one of the best technologies that you can get because it captures the flowers in 360 dimensions.
06:07Her idea was, let's have a garden that is, you know, in our screens.
06:15So of course, it's not in the soil, but it means that it will stay here forever.
06:21However, if these flowers will not exist anymore because of climate change, well, we will still have it there.
06:30What I'm saying with all these three examples is that what you see is there are three artists that had
06:42a powerful message to say.
06:46We can't trust AI to protect what it doesn't see.
06:53So our role is to make it visible.
06:58These three artists, we are accompanying them with our agency.
07:05We have 500 artists.
07:07And what we do, our role, is to connect them with companies that have a message to say to their
07:15audience, to their employees.
07:17If they want to say something, we will make them into storytelling that I hope will inspire you in some
07:27way.
07:27So if you're interested in that way of thinking, I mean, I'd love to talk to you more about this.
07:36And perhaps I can just end with some of the places where we are actually displaying all of these artworks
07:47in order to help these artists be known and make sure that the message come through.
07:56Thank you. Thank you very much.
08:03Don't go away.
08:04Do you want to wait until the end of the video?
08:06We can do some questions.
08:07We can talk while the video is playing.
08:10Okay, good.
08:12I have a question.
08:13Yeah?
08:14So, okay, so you presented to us these three artworks, these three artists.
08:18You said in your talk that ArtPoint is an agency.
08:22Do you want to talk a little bit more about what it is that you're doing for those who don't
08:26know what you're doing?
08:27Yeah, of course.
08:28So we've got two models.
08:31The one model is art on screen.
08:33What it means is if, for example, you have a company, it's Monday morning, you're a manager, and you want
08:43your teams to be energized, well, then you may want to have an artwork that conveys this energy.
08:52If you have a screen, because, of course, in the meeting rooms, there are screens everywhere.
08:58Well, instead of your PowerPoint, just think about something else.
09:02Think about a digital artwork that will be super energizing.
09:09It's just one way of seeing it, but, of course, I will not be saying that to a hotel spa,
09:14for which we have, of course, more soothing artworks.
09:19We are also in airports.
09:21We're in digital, you know, retail places.
09:26So I'm trying to reach everyone here.
09:29It works for everyone.
09:31And the second offer that we have is art experiences.
09:35So it's mainly for events.
09:37If you've got just a booth in Vivitech or somewhere else, and you have an innovation that you want to
09:45showcase, but it's simply not wow, I mean, in terms of visually, then you may need an artist to convey
09:56that innovation for you.
09:58And this is where we come in.
10:00So, you give us a brief.
10:02You tell us the event takes place in three weeks.
10:05That number of people, and I want it to be interactive, and we make it happen.
10:11Okay.
10:12So, basically, what you're doing is someone will come to you about an event that they're going to do in
10:16a particular industry and say, okay, so we have this idea.
10:18And then you find them a selection of artists you think that would work the best.
10:23And then once they choose basically, I don't know, like a theme or a particular, just one picture, and then
10:31you can base the entire event around that or use several.
10:34Yeah, I'll just give you one example.
10:37Okay.
10:37It took place, actually, here in Vivitech.
10:40It was KPMG consulting firm.
10:43They published a report on climate change and resilience.
10:47And their idea was, how can I work with my data and just make it visible?
10:55We turned their data into data art, and we made it into an exhibition.
11:02That means that people just looked at it and understood the underlying messages thanks to this powerful artwork.
11:10All right.
11:11Thank you.
11:11Any other questions from the audience?
11:14Please.
11:16About what they're doing?
11:19Nope.
11:21Where can we find you to, you know, because I think that, obviously, you're going to go and see it
11:24and look at your art, right?
11:25This is a wonderful question.
11:28Yes, we are here at Vivitech.
11:30It's an amazing place.
11:33It's on M37.
11:35It's that way.
11:36And you can find some of our immersive, interactive experience, and we can talk some more about it.
11:44Okay.
11:45Ladies and gentlemen, art point.
11:48Anne.
11:49Thank you.
11:51Thank you.
11:53Thanks very much.
11:54Thank you.
11:54Merci.
