Mexico’s Sfer Ik launches $100,000 award to support creation of AI art project

Sfer Ik, the visible arts department of the Azulik resort on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, has launched an open name for artwork initiatives incorporating synthetic intelligence (AI). On the finish of the open name—working from at this time (12 September) till 17 November—a global jury of curators and critics led by Sfer Ik’s artistic director Marcello Dantas will choose one artist’s successful proposal.

“We are going to collaborate with the artist and provides them the means, the cash, the instruments and the staff to make it occur,” Dantas says. There are remarkably few restrictions concerning who can apply for the award, with artists working in any nation, model and medium eligible.

The phrases of the open name are additionally very broad concerning how candidates can incorporate AI into their proposals, merely specifying that it ought to align with how they method the award’s themes of interspecies connection, environmental engagement and ancestral data. “It may be something, from utilizing an AI visualiser to mannequin the work to utilizing an AI chatbot to debate the idea of the proposal, however what we need to say to artists is: don’t underestimate this platform.”

The successful artist will obtain $100,000 and a two-month residency to understand their proposal at Sfer Ik’s advanced exterior of Tulum. There they are going to have entry to intensive studio and fabrication amenities that embrace laser cutters, thermoforming machines, 3D printers and a six-axis robotic arm, in addition to extra conventional tools for making glass, ceramics and extra.

“That is what actually enticed me about this undertaking, as a result of it permits artists to utterly neglect about insurance coverage, delivery, packaging, crating—all of the logistical issues that you simply cope with in museums and galleries,” Dantos says. “Right here, every little thing’s on the website, with the native amenities—the most important unknown you could have to cope with is hurricanes.”

As soon as the successful proposal is produced, it would go on show at an open-air museum Sfer Ik is constructing in Tulum. Two runner-ups will even be chosen by the jury, and the artists behind these initiatives shall be invited for residencies on the advanced, which Dantas says may result in the realisation of their proposals, too, relying on price and feasibility components.

“We actually consider that there’s a harmonious strategy to combine artwork, expertise, science and ancestral data—and if completed nicely, it may end up in a significantly better place for us on the planet. Everyone’s speaking concerning the dystopian potential of AI, and we’re actually excited about the utopian purposes of AI. Can AI actually empower folks? And we need to consider that sure, it will probably.”

The successful proposal shall be introduced throughout Miami Artwork Week in early December. Whereas the award is a one-off for now, Dantas hopes “the mannequin might be replicated” in future years pending the end result of this primary iteration.

Along with its properties in and round Tulum—an ecotourism vacation spot south of Cancun on a stretch of Mexico’s Caribbean coast generally known as Riviera Maya for its many archaeological websites—Azulik is at the moment creating a resort and artwork house within the AlUla area of Saudi Arabia. The founder and chief government of Azulik is the mononymic designer and philanthropist Roth.