Creating Futures: Art and AI for Tomorrow's Narratives

In a world brimming with polarization, inequity and complexity, understanding and shaping our future is more crucial than ever. Artists and cultural practitioners are crucial in pushing the boundaries of how we understand ourselves and the world around us. They help us to move beyond the familiar, transcend borders between the present and the future, and encourage exploration into realms that seem improbable.

Creating Futures was a program focusing on the role of creativity, art and emerging technologies in challenging entrenched narratives and imagining more just and equitable futures.

This program explored the emergent possibilities at the intersection of creative expression, technology, and artificial intelligence. It also delved into the socio-technical terrain of our present, exploring the encoded biases of AI systems that magnify structural inequities and histories of erasure. It provided a global platform for artists who are working to intervene in these narratives, critically exploring alternative possibilities, and coding alternative futures.

This program recognized the power of art not just as a reflection of society but as an influential force capable of reshaping narratives and questioning the status quo. By embracing no singular "future" but a multitude of possibilities, this program highlighted the transformative power of art in shaping the imagination and building true, lasting social change, offering a platform for diverse voices to redefine our collective future.

This program was by invitation only.

Date

May 06 - May 10, 2024

Session no.

S833-01

Location

Hybrid

Contact

Faye Hobson

Director, Culture

Paula Ferreira Martins

Program Manager, Culture

Surya HK

Network Development Specialist, Culture

Litha Sokutu

DEI Strategic Specialist

Content overview

Program Overview OUTCOMES Photos Participants Partners

Program Overview

PARTICIPATION

This hybrid program built new insights and aggregate perspectives and experiences from different parts of the art world. Participants were expected to:

EXPERIENCE...
• A candid and open exchange with peers under the Chatham House Rule.
• Time and space to disconnect and reflect from a wider ecosystem perspective.

GAIN...
• Connection to an active international community of outstanding leaders working on this topic.
• Inspiration and learning from across the world and foresight into directions for future work.
• Relationships for coalition building across organizational, professional and geographical boundaries.
• Access to a vast network of Salzburg Global Fellows working across sectors to shape a better world.

GIVE AND RECEIVE...
• Promising practices and draw on the group’s collective intelligence and experience to tackle challenges you face and leverage important opportunities.
• Information about projects, approaches, resources and case studies relevant to this topic.
• Opportunities for peer mentoring on ways to incubate, replicate, adapt and scale good practices.

Program Format and Timeline

Programs at Salzburg Global Seminar are highly participatory and create space for sharing perspectives, engaging in intensive learning, and committing to taking action.

This highly interactive, hybrid program brought together 50 participants from across the globe for two online sessions and a four and half-day residential program at Schloss Leopoldskron, home of Salzburg Global Seminar, in Salzburg, Austria.

• Co-Creation Meeting 1, April 16th, 15:00 to 16:30 CET
• Co-Creation Meeting 2, April 23rd, 15:00 to 16:30 CET
• In-Person Program, May 6th (from 15:00) to May 10th (departure), 2024
• Online engagement through 2024

Participant Profile

As an unconventional convenor, Salzburg Global is committed to convening inclusive, international, interdisciplinary, and intergenerational programs.

This program brought together 40 participants from around the world, including artists, technologists, futurists, curators, activists, social and political scientists, leaders of cultural institutions, policymakers, and academics.

Salzburg Global actively encourages participation from representatives of communities that have been historically less visible and privileged in the field of arts and culture. We especially welcome participation from people of color, disabled people, those who identify as LGBT*, those with low-income backgrounds, and from Indigenous, ethnically diverse, or migrant backgrounds.

This program was by invitation only.

*LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. We are using this term as it is currently widely used in human rights conversations on sexual orientation and gender identity in many parts of the world, and we would wish it to be read as inclusive of other cultural concepts, contemporary or historical, to express sexuality and gender, intersex and gender non-conforming identities.

Program Goals

The goal of this program was to provide participants with a supportive, cross-sectoral space to exchange experiences and adaptable practices, share lessons learned, be mutually inspired to strengthen and extend their artistic voices, and be empowered to take individual and collective action.

The in-person program was envisioned to produce tangible outputs, including a Salzburg Statement that can contribute significantly to the expanding body of literature on the intersection of art, technology, and societal change. The specific nature of additional outcomes was decided collectively by the program participants during their working groups/hackathon and can be viewed in the tab "Outcomes".