Pioneering poet and AI researcher Sasha Stiles explores art at the intersection of cutting-edge technology.
In her DLD24 conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist (Serpentine Galleries), she explains why she sees language as an ancient form of data storage, describes her interest in experiential poetry and discusses her work with Gucci and Christie’s using blockchain technology.
“I have really enjoyed getting to use technological tools like artificial intelligence, like digital software, like blockchain, to dig into this idea that poetry is not a luxury, that poetry is not an ornamental flourish to how humans communicate”, Stiles says. “It’s actually foundational and very core to how humans communicate [because] poetry is something that we invented.”
In some ways, she says, text can act like a code, “that is almost like a key that’s letting us unlock the door to realms of emotion and realms of creativity and ideas that we didn’t know were there.”
Technology can also make poetry more accessible to younger generations, Stiles believes.
“What’s really exciting for me is how some of these tools, how blockchain, how AR, how VR can really enable us to feel and embody language”, she explains. “There’s a lot to be said for all the things that are not sayable in a text and that are nonverbal and that are best communicated through other means.”
Make sure to watch the video to also hear about Stiles’ Cursive Binary project, a “proposed language for transhuman connection”, and much more.
