Prof. Frederic Fol Leymarie

Frederic Fol Leymarie, a professor of Computing, is the co-director and co-founder (in 2008) of the post-graduate program in Computer Games and Entertainment at Goldsmiths, University of London. On the research front, Frederic is developing a mathematical language for shape representation with potential for applications in various domains and industries, from the Arts and Performance areas to Biology, Medicine, Computer Aided Design (CAD), Architecture, and more. He is the co-founder of London Geometry (in 2011), a leading consultancy, providing professional training for the games industry and developing serious games solutions.
Frederic did his studies in the realm of A.I. first at McGill University, Canada (at the Center for Intelligent Machines) and then at Brown University, USA (in the Engineering Division), where he was co-founder of the SHAPE Lab (in 2000). He was the PI on the AIkon project (robot portrait drawer having international impact off and on-line: www.aikon-gold.com). He is the PI on the AutoGraff project (follow-up to AIkon focused on graffiti and more advanced humanoid robotics: http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/autograff/). He is the PI for Goldsmiths of the BioBlox project (jointly with Imperial College) focused on developing an online
game based 3D protein docking (a 3D tetris-like scientifically-based game): www.bioblox.org

Synopsis

On Art and A.I.

I will consider recent practices and exchanges between some artistic disciplines and science and technology, in particular through the lens of recent progress (and enthusiasm) observed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.).

Our starting point is to consider intelligence, and in particular creativity, as an outcome of evolution, where the human agent needs to understand its environment and take actions which improve their chances of survival, success, well-being. An artistic practice represents one form of creative activity, which is process-based (demanding actions, skills, planning), culturally bound (involving memory, traditions, constraints), reflexive (meant to be appreciated by oneself and others).

A.I., in its interaction with art, can play a double role as (i) it can feed into an art practice by providing new processes (or extend existing ones), and (ii) it can help in providing a sophisticated analytical platform, to study, better understand creative activities (and thus human intelligence).

We also note that this relationship is not unidirectional: an art practice can also inform science, and A.I. in particular. For example, an artist is continuously researching novel ways to find "pathways" into a complex production space to achieve human understandable, yet often surprising, outcomes.

I will illustrate my discourse with a few examples of current artistic practices which are intertwined with A.I.