This is a RadicalxChange production. Hello, and welcome to Radical Exchanges. In today's episode, Matt Pruitt talks to Victoria Ivanova, Starting with the question of how we can best mobilize the artistic and cultural sectors to offer a critical and actionable approach to our current technological conditions while keeping democratic ideals in mind. They go on to explore a whole range of topics, from the role of art in the industrial revolution, to its current crisis of meaning in our age of accelerationism and powerful AI. It expands on the recent paper they wrote, along with Paolo Berman, titled Rethinking Art Ownership, in which they explore the ways that partial common ownership or plural property could create a more fair and dynamic market for art. This episode and the paper are a collaboration between Radical Xchange and Serpentine Arts. Victoria is a curator, writer, and strategic consultant. She is currently working with the Serpentine Arts Technologies team as r and d strategist. She is also the cofounder of Izalazia, RealFlow, and Bureau for Cultural Strategies. Without further ado, here is Matt Pruitt and Victoria Ivanova.

Okay. Well, currently, I am an r and d strategist working at a visual arts organization in London called Serpentine. I work as part of the arts technologies department. So we commission artists who work with advanced technologies to produce new artworks. And I could have started on this sort of pathway of developing my current role when I first joined Serpentine in 2018 as a practice based PhD student. And the question that was, posed to me or in front of me was how could we design an r and d department in a context of an art institution. And that's a somewhat unusual question as far as PhD questions are concerned, but, and not just because we were developing this department through the prism of, my PhD, but also because r and d is not something that we usually associate with, the role of public arts institutions. The reason that seemed like a relevant and worthwhile pursuit, particularly in the context of a public arts organization, is because we realized that with, increasing ubiquity of technology in society and technological development itself becoming widespread cultural formation. Kind of the artistic perspective on that process was quite unique and perhaps, quite important in a context of technological development that's largely informed by interests of proprietary kind of market oriented commercial actors or informed by, you know, interests relating to power and control. So the artist position, you know, historically has always been one, that kind of questions power constellations and that also tries to think creatively about, the most pertinent issues to our current condition as well as to the various new media that are emerging within, our tech to social societies. So the r and d part of the organization that I developed since 2018 and my role was part of, that developmental process or the emergence of my role was part of that developmental process is, you know, it's very much dedicated to this larger question as to how can we best mobilize the public art sector, that's in the case of The UK, but arts more generally, in order to offer, a critical but also kind of actionable and impactful approach to the current technological conditions, with, you know, hopefully, a progressive, societal mission in mind. So that's kind of that's that's that's where I am now. But my background is in human rights, actually. So it's a bit further afield to art. And the jump that I had made more than a decade ago I don't know. Actually, much more than a decade ago. I stopped stopped counting yours. Was sort of understanding that, the legal lens on, addressing problems of structural injustice is an important lens, but it's also very limited as far as dealing with kind of nuances of social and societal specificities are concerned. And so I was always very interested in, like, understanding whether we can take the human rights mission, but utilize, let's say, cultural tools in the cultural space in order to address similar issues. So, yeah, there are many different kind of, obviously, chapters and subchapters that I could go into. But I think for our current conversation, that's probably the two most relevant areas.

Yeah. They kind of the modernist to sort of set the kind of paradigm of, yeah, what we under still understand as a kind of critical role of art in society.

brain dump here is The preamble. Yeah. I'm already mentally taking notes because I think we we look at these things from slightly different perspective, which will be interesting to get into in a moment. Okay. But, yeah, continue. Yeah.

First of all, it's really interesting that you are looking at, well, first of all, disclaimer. I'm definitely not an art historian. But there has been one, I guess, historical art that's been very important to the development of the premises upon which I have based, let's say, the last ten years of my practice. And that's the historical art precisely that you kind of delineated from, the sort of late industrial era, at least in the context of the Western world, so eighteen fifties and late nineteenth century, then sixties, and I'll explain in a second why, and then eighties and nineties. And so what we have there is a very particular approach to the ontological status of what the art object is that has been kind of evolving in an iterative manner. And arguably, that evolution started with such artists as Courbet Manet, who interestingly, so in your account, you know, you're looking at the content of the artworks. And I never actually thought about the content of the artworks. The thing that has also interested me the most about those artists is that they were, their mission was to reject the formal institutional constraints that put a particular definition as to what art is on a kind of representational formal level. And this kind of, formalist sort of undoing and challenging of the norms of what makes a painting, what makes a painting worth looking at, what is good sculpture. And, you know, the way that they positioned themselves through the Salon des Refuses, which was, this kind of counter institutional formation in Paris. It that's the kind of really interesting aspect for me in terms of modernist art history that what started, I guess, arguably with these, artists is an understanding of art as a specific type of crystallization around how we legitimize what is reality, right, and what is reality that is worth engaging with. And, you know, I think there, the sort of revolutionary aspect is, for me, is not so much in the content of the work, although you're probably right. You know, there are kind of interest in specific subjects and their plight and the systemic injustices that are on the road, the kind of the struggles of these people are incredibly important. But it's the sort of revolutionary aspect of changing the terms on which the art object is defined that is quite interesting to me. And that's, in a sense, maybe the genesis of, this larger claim that has been then made by conceptual artists and, you know, many contemporary artists as well that, apart from an aesthetic representational operation, Art is a performative operation. And the kind of the performing of the rejection of certain rules and pointing to new possibilities is part of what art offers. And so then we we kind of shift towards, you know, twentieth sorry. Yeah. Twentieth century, early twentieth century, and, you know, there's some kind of, like, cliche figures like Duchamp. And, you know, Duchamp with, The Fountain and many other of his artworks, you know, or or their artworks. We don't quite actually know who or what Duchamp was. But, the gesture there is almost like a kind of hyperbolic, intensification of what Manet and Courbet started. And so far as, Duchamp made it possible to say that there's something about or that allows for a semantic kind of authority where we can as long as the author says that it's art, it should be perceived as such. And that kind of transformation in understanding what is art if it's not some kind of definition of formal rules, led to a lot of possibilities in the nineteen sixties that are most prominently explored by the conceptual art movement. And at the same time, you know, we understand that once we then get to the late, twentieth century, the eighties and the nineties, the sort of merging of art as an empty set, so to speak, in which you can, like, literally, you know, you you can put whatever parameters into it. And as long as as long as the author determines something as art and an audience perceives it as art, it is art. When we get to the eighties and the nineties, there's a slightly uncanny coalescing that happens between the kind of neoliberalization of, like, the political environment and art as this very kind of ultimately, like, individualized, you know, authoritative statement on the behalf of the producer. And where we get to in the nineties is that there is a proliferation of contemporary art institutions around the globe, that is sort of boosted by the fact that, you know, kind of the liberal cosmopolitan project, is seen as a success with the fall of Soviet Union, and somehow kind of contemporary art with this sort of very, you know, I I I don't wanna say libertarian, but, like, very kind of liberal, ontological identity becomes a mascot, the cultural mascot of this global cosmopolitan project. And this opens up really interesting, you know, like, avenues, in the nineties in terms of, on the one hand, are all of a sudden becoming, you know, a manifestation of a wider, sociocultural global paradigm. On the other hand, it's sort of, I guess, it's merging with power becomes a bit of an uncomfortable reality that I think not many people were attuned to. I mean, it's, you know, only, I guess, in the February that you started getting a lot of critical literature, where that relationship between the dominant, social and economic structures and the philosophies that drive them, is kind of analyzed in terms of, oh, wow. That's kind of what contemporary art is as well if you think about its ontological status. At the same time, I also think that this has opened up, a lot of possibilities for the art field to really kind of question its ethos as far as the relationship to these structures is concerned. And I think by the time we get to now, right, to the point where we are, it sort of means that the proximity to this historical arc of techno social development that got us to this moment in time, art's proximity to it, means that it's also very well positioned to play with this with this configuration in ways that can challenge our understanding as to where we should go next. So it's almost like now we got to a stage where our awareness of the proximity between the ontological status of art, what is happening in society, you know, on wider terms. That awareness, it gives us an opportunity to to do things in a sort of much more, strategic manner. And I think this is where my kind of fascination with strategy arises from is that once we admit that art is in this autonomous separate kind of evolutionary arc, but is actually tightly embedded both in terms of its ontological, presumptions, but also in terms of how it aligns with various power actors. And once we admit it, it means that the only real possibility we have is to be strategic about how we further evolve art as a practice and the infrastructure that, makes art production or distribution, you know, and art as an economic reality a reality. And, you know, this is where we come to our collaboration, which is why questions that are on ownership, becomes so incredibly important because that's very clear point of intervention, that is strategic and that has a, you know, that has a potential to, make an important precedent in society, not just for the art field, but for society, more generally. But another point that I really wanted to make in relationship to this, I guess, this arc of, rejecting the norms that starts with money, goes into Duchamp, conceptual art practices. And, you know, I think there are also different kind of milestones that one can draw up depending on which artist one likes, and it's a bit of a pity. This particular, one is is a bit of a male dominated one. You you know, you could have an alternative art, but alternative art, but it's sort of, I guess, on on a kind of levels of what the milestones represent, it would be still the same. This it would mean kind of the same type of thing. But what else is interesting if we really think about kind of contemporary art as dissolution of any, endogenous criteria for what art is and kind of complete reliance on the authorship aspect and exogenous aspects such as, you know, does this work get accredited as work by curators and the institutions and the market? And if so, yes, it probably has the status of art. So the sort of the the lack of internal criteria, and the inability to kind of question anything further that is formal and kind of limiting on a formal level means that you need to start questioning something more macro than the artwork itself. And so this is where I think the questioning of the infrastructures that make art possible as a phenomena comes into play. So my definition of art at this stage is something that actually doesn't have outer bounds. So in some more ways, I am, you you know, totally within the lineage that I have just described. And so far, I think that's the most exciting thing about art is that it is all encompassing, and there is no outer boundary at the moment. But if we're to be strategic as to what artistic practice should be in this historical moment in time, then we need to take the techno social infrastructures very seriously because these are the most defining and, you know, parameter setting aspects, for our societies today.

Yes. So I think there are different levels at which we can understand this, but, ultimately, yeah, they're interconnected. So, you know, there's the obvious one, and I'm sorry to call this off. I'm sorry. The one that you mentioned is the obvious one around the futurist. Right? So, effectively futurist, as you said, they aestheticized specific aspects of technological progress and really celebrated them and, made, you know, made it very aesthetically clear that this is a good thing. Right? So there is this sort of representational celebration of progress as being identified with the existing technological innovation or developments. And it's interesting you use the term accelerationist. And and that's a term that, has had various connotations associated with it in the recent decade. You know, it's it's it's closely kind of associated with the writings of, Nick Lant, who is a very controversial philosopher and, you know, many would argue a dystopian, potentially even, like, right wing leaning, philosopher. But I I guess the premise with, you know, that sort of dystopian version of accelerationism is that, accelerated technological progress will increasingly lead to dissolution of humanist principles and the kind of ultimate triumph of, superior technologies, most often cited as advanced AI, over social order. And so sort of incomplete dissolution of social order as we know it and the role of humanity within that order as the central organizing principle. So that's like the deep dystopian accelerationist narrative. Then there was, I don't remember years anymore, but not so long ago. Probably around 2000, I guess, 12. Don't know. We'll have to fact check on that. There was an, the acceleration's manifesto that was put out by Nick Srnicek or as some people might know him as Srnicek, and Alex Williams. And they're associated with what then at least within the wider kind of cultural circles, although both of them are kind of political scientists and, I think historians of economics, but somehow they got a lot of tractions in the cultural space. Their version of accelerationism is much more aligned with, like, a positive view of technology in the sense that but not in a kind of futurist, yay, the steam engine type of thing. But an understanding that, the sort of the boundaries between humanity and technology, like, we shouldn't draw this as out this as an antagonism and that there is a connection between, how humans operate in the world and the fact that we want to construct technology because that's what allows us to have, to quote the writer also Le Guin, a material an interface with the material world. So they kind of take a more, I guess, philosophical stance towards technology whilst being very sober about the fact that, technological development and the role of technological innovation set is not going to go away. And so instead of rejecting technology, left wing politics, and they're addressing themselves towards left wing politics, needs to embrace a technologically progressive paradigm of society, and embed leftist progressive principles into the developmental pathway of technology. And so that is now kind of as a left accelerationist take on, I guess, technology. And the reason I'm kind of going on this deviation is because there have been a number of, I guess, micro art movements since, at least the nineties, that you know, way before this, Acceleration Manifesto was published, that took precisely this approach to technology and really saw the art space as a potential kind of negotiation ground for developing conceptualizations of this progressively oriented technological pathways. And, you know, we look at artworks today that address, really dominant technologies that are primarily, you know, developed through, obviously, kind of private, interests. And we see that a lot of other artists critique this technology and they're critiquing the downsides of, what these technologies are kind of doing to society. But many also proposing alternative ways of looking at these technologies. So, you know, for example, artist Jacob Kudstensen, who uses, virtual world building a lot in his practice, he sort of instead of looking at VR through the slogan, the brand new slogan, I was like, the empathy I mean, like, empathy technology, which is, you know, quite frankly, absolute bullshit. He is interested in VR as a way of creating a more kind of slow and attention focused engagement with with natural environment or aspects of natural environment that are either already extinct or are going to be extinct in the near future. And so here maybe, you know, maybe some more sophisticated understanding of what empathy could be, but I guess what he's offering is is a different lens on the role of VR. And that's, you know, that's a minute contribution. But if we kind of think, in terms of wider repercussions and precedent setting, it does seem significant to have at least some space in society where even these, like, marginal experiments and marginal views, can be nurtured and born and hopefully, you know, taken up by other actors outside of the art field. And this act of being taken up, that's also like an infrastructural design question. You know? And this is why I'm really interested in the interface between the art field and external fields is because that scaling, scaling is our word, has not been designed yet. And ownership could be one way in which we could understand, like, an alternative ecosystem through which these marginal experiments and views can be amplified by actors outside of the art field whose missions it is to, let's say, I don't know, mission oriented organizations who are dedicated to pursuing different approaches to technology. So, yeah. So I'm not sure where we started, but but but this is yeah. This is,

Yeah. And I see what you're saying. I mean, I guess, in this particular example, there is sort of an inflection that takes place in relationship to an existing technology. So, I mean, there is, like, a wider piece there as well about how exactly this particular artist works with this technology, and there's a lot of innovative dimension that he brings to the use of this technology as well. So, you know, it's not just about taking kind of shelf ready, products and softwares and Yeah. Creating this message. There's there's, like, there's a you know, what what we call at our department, a kind of, like, full stack intervention, so to speak, which I don't actually have the details right to go into, but it's you know, this this is, I think that's important. So I'm happy that you focus on that. When it comes to, I think, the, the critique element and proposals of new narratives around technologies to emerge, it's not just the discursive layer. It's not just this representational aesthetic layer. It is really important that, there is, kind of capacity to make interventions of different lay layers of the stack. But, you know, the reason we started, for example, like the future our ecosystems project, which looks at the construction the need to construct twenty first century cultural infrastructure, there is no provision right now in the existing setup of the art field to make interventions at the at the at the different layers of the stack. Right now, ultimately, like, if we're really honest about it, the if we don't upgrade, evolve, reconfigure, or create adjacent or ecosystems, the current setup of institutions and market, is geared towards doing very superficial narrativization around technologies that already exist or doing really smart critique that is discursive, and a lot of it is happening, but it doesn't actually have any teeth. It doesn't, like, bite into the Right. Deeper, like, infrastructural, parametric aspects of why, you know, these technologies are really powerful and why slight deviations or forks or, you know, different, outtake criteria are required.

and It's so slow that it collect. Object based commodity form.

that over which you have exclusive property rights. That sets certain limitations upon what the pipeline to producing this thing on a very basic logistical level and, like, kind of a Yeah. Production level. It sets a lot of limitations into what this thing can be. Yeah. So yes. But carry on.

Absolutely. And, you know, I I think it's important to note, it's not that it has not been done. Right? And in many ways, you know, there have been a lot of precedents and experiments where the kind of financial and transactional elements of the artwork were became the very material of the artwork itself. You know, within the western or historical narrative, we could actually take the whole conceptual art movement and see it as that in many respects. I mean, a lot of the challenging that happened within conceptual art is around the framing of the object in the space, but it also kind of spilled out into the larger infrastructural and, transactional economic aspects of of it as well. Yet nothing none of these experiments or one off artworks ever became scaled as systemic realities. And this is where I think, you know, the big question is whether art as, like, an individuated practice can actually achieve that sort of transformation. And I honestly think it cannot. I don't think that individual artistic practices that are experimenting with have the capacity to transform the largest systems within which they're embedded. And so this is where I think the the scale of the organization becomes very, very important, because it is at the scale of the organization and, let's say, the public mission of the organization that you can try to set precedence which are oriented towards systemic transformations. Not to say that you know, obviously, the the greatest thing would be like, oh, let's write, a white paper and some really friendly government will base its policy on it. Right? And then all of a sudden, everything is changed. That that would be great if we had this kind of, like, top down. I mean, obviously, you know, all all the activists are throwing rotten apples at me. But, like, that you know, as far as, like, efficiency of transfer systemic transformation is concerned, that would be amazing. But it's unlikely to happen, and it has not happened. So there needs to be some other access point into trying to achieve systemic transformation. And my intuition is that access point is the organizational layer.

Does that make sense? Yeah. That make no. Of course. I mean, I think if a friend of mine made this interesting statement, that Francis Fukuyama's history is over. Yeah. Kind of, you know, obviously, not very well respected, hot take. It it's actually true now. Like, history in some ways is over insofar as the way that we understood transformation to be a transformation of, like, iterations and meanings attached to some kind of reference ref references that we're able to validate, so to speak. So there is some kind of progression that we can track. That is that kind of that theory of change is probably over. And the former evolution of art paradigm, reflected that sort of theory of change where you have very particular formal, aspects of art associated with particular historical eras. You know? And as I just previously said, then there are certain kind of, ontological connotations between why these formal aspects within that historical era. And, you know, and you can track progression. And I guess with, you know, with contemporary already, we have this flattening out of meaning kind of and, the messages are only important insofar as they're made by someone who is institutionally legitimized. And so with AI, I think, you know, even that goes right right now. So, it's and that's really interesting and a huge challenge, I guess, to this somewhat kind of cavalier statement that I said that art should be everything and should be seen as the sort of, like, you know, almost like a black hole of a potential meaning creation. But what does that mean for art in the era of advanced AI is a really big question. Right? Like, where how do we then make sense of anything if we can no longer point to, like, a clearly reference set of premises that are being either rejected or critiqued or, you know, or otherwise somehow dealt with. Which is why I think that, you know, I would say that maybe the medium is the infrastructure is the message, is, like, is where we're getting to. And so to kind of have any sort of, I guess, like, in order to have any grasp on reality and to feel like you can have traction reality, you need to look at the infrastructure and what it is doing both in a technical level, on a legal level, on a governance level. And so, in some ways, that ask like, that, I guess techno administrative governmental, layer becomes the most important layer for art as well. So if it is no longer, you know, message making in reference to past realities, It has to be message making or message creating at the level of infrastructural protocols.

Let that not tarnish my reputation. But it's a it's a good moment to reread this.

at the very least.

May I just say something in regards to that? Yeah. So and I think this comes also from, rereading Wiener and, you know, the of everything. I guess, terrible word. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible word. But it, I think the the issue there isn't so much the actual act of this phenomena. The issue is that we identify entities through this kind of informatization informational paradigm. So kind of it's identifying entities through the, you know, whatever subtotal cumulative data points that make them up, from the perspective of, you know, us as humans or from the perspective of machines, right, and as we see it now. And I think, we are not gonna get we're gonna get into a lot of trouble if we continue with this sort of epistemological assumption, that governs our approach to something like law because what's important about law is exactly what you described. It's the relationship that it has with morality, but it's also certain other qualities of what law as a particular way of organizing society allows the societies to be. That is important. And so rather than, like, seeing law as a as a sort of subtotal of, all of the information that it kind of posits as a genre. I I'm you know, I'd be interested in approaching it as, like, what are the qualities of this reality of, of the law that we want to hold on to or that we want to think, like, how they would need to be reconfigured in the context of something like advanced AI and its impact on society. So and the same thing I think goes for, you know, other disciplines, other areas. It's there's, like, a major shift, you know, that has been latent for a very long time, you know, arguably since the beginning of the industrial revolution in kind of shifting the western epistemological lens from, like, object centered perception of reality to, a relation centered perspective on reality. And when we shift it to relation, centered perception of reality, what we realize that what we actually, really value or what matters to us is the nature of those relations and how these relations are structured. And that's the reason why we create institutions, why we create systems, etcetera. And, you know, and that that I think that shift in thinking so, you know, interestingly, there's a really great text, called, oh my god, called systems aesthetics, I think. And it's a text from early nineteen sixties that talks about sort of this shift from an object oriented culture to systems oriented culture. And, you know, I feel like Santa Fe Institute for Complexity is like, you know, a perfect representation of a space that has been exploring this a great level of sophistication for for some time. So, like, I cannot compete in my views, with with what, you know, scientists and researchers have to say there. But I feel like that sort of understanding of reality is what we need more and more. But, unfortunately, it is not represented through the institutions that we currently have. So there is this sort of inconsistency. You know? On the one hand, we created the institutions that we have, whether they're economic institutions, art institutions, or legal institutions because because we care about how society manifests itself through a structure of relationships, a particular structure of relationships. But we have still hung on to this very kind of object oriented view of what makes something, you know, a a phenomena, a thing that we should, yeah, that that we should somehow Yeah. You know, acknowledge as real. I hope that makes sense. Like so there's so I guess the reason I I think this is kind of irrelevant, yeah, irrelevant, perspective to our conversation is that I think art is ultimately about configuring relations and thinking very deeply about how these relations are configured. And the reason we want to hold on to art as a very particular, I mean, if it's, like, phenomenon in society is because the moral impulse that is embedded into why we would want to create a certain type, a certain set of relations with certain qualities. So so, yes, so there is, like, a very kind of, I think, moral, ethical, dimension to art making and art experiencing and art reality as such. And it's not about kind of moralizing, but it's the sort of the the the moral impulse that we also find in law, but it's just has a very different set of, internalities embedded within it. And, you know, now we're, all of a sudden, we really have to question why it's important that I answer my email to you rather than GPT four. Right. Right? The kind of the art lens, all of a sudden, becomes important. Right? So if I, like, if I actually approach my act of writing an email to you as an art act, it means that, yeah, there are trivial things that we need to decide that probably, you know, in terms of, like, calendar syncing and, you know, background information on what future ecosystems is and, you know, I I need to communicate. And probably g b t four could do that fairly well. But then there's some, like, wild connections that I want to make between the kind of mechanism design aspirations of partial common ownership and, a certain artistic practice or project that I'm working with and where I think there could be a synthesis that is productive. Yeah. And, you know, maybe I'm kidding myself to say that this is not something that AI could come up with. Maybe, you know, may maybe there is a certain level of, predictability within making that connection that could be inferred should there be a sufficiently sophisticated analysis of the the various previous projects that I have done, and, you know, how I communicate with other people, etcetera. Perhaps it's possible. But the intentionality of doing that in that particular moment, I think, cannot be taken for granted. And so it's not that I kinda want to distinguish myself from AI, but there is something about this sort of synthesis of possibilities that, distinguishes, like, a purely automated act that is very, let's say, intelligent, so to speak, or that is, inferentially and statistically accurate, and the kind of moral intentionality that I imbue the content of the email, right, and the connections that I make. Yeah. I hope that kind of make makes sense. I mean, it's not a fully developed thought, but, but it's, yeah, trying to kind of grapple with this idea of intentionality, morality, relation building, and what AI is proposing now and why we're like, it's, you know, this what it's capable of doing now is very interesting, but somehow does not necessarily capture this aspect. But I know you disagree with me on that a little bit because you think GPT four could act 10 could actually do that. So I'd be curious to know, like, what you think about this, slightly speculative take on the distinctions.

Okay. So but but you're positioning the could have let's say, one of the major consequences of advanced AI, the computability of language, and the ability to, yeah, construct relational objects that we construct through, I don't know, conversation, or through other kind of methods of, using language as the interface through which we'll learn about the world. Right? And now we have this kind of black box AI. Right? That sort of does that for us. But I yeah. So I'm not I'm not entirely sure why because with with with the animal stuff, I'm that I mean, I I hear you, but I think what's interesting is that it could it could you know, there are also ways, like, you know, I've heard from colleagues who are interested in, like, could AI help interspecies communication. Right? So Yeah. There is, like, a, you know, kind of a speculative project there around developing a better, actually, sense of alignment with our natural world and other species by using AI as a medium. So, you know, there's, like, a positive narrative around that. But for me, that's that that's that's cool. That sounds great. I'm into that. A particularly great art project. Yeah. But that doesn't get to the root of the problem. And for me, the root of the problem is actually much simpler. But first, I wanna I wanna hear what you what you think about this.

Not without its problems as well.

as any other species. Yeah. Yeah. So I think this is something, like, worth remembering as well in relationship to AI. And I I don't know. Sorry. But continue. I don't wanna break you off, but I I I I want I I want to make a point after that.

You know, and the challenge with that, I think, is what I've referred to previously when I said we can no longer feel comfortable within a paradigm where identity equals information. Yeah. Or the possibility and capacity to process information is, you know, like, those are not if if we still remain committed to that model of, valuing reality, so I think this is where the moral lens comes in. Probably, you know, we're probably facing a pretty dystopian future. But I think the challenge here is then to shift the ontological lens, and this is not unprecedented. You know? There are a lot of cultures outside of the sort of Western paradigm that we inherit, that have had different ontological lenses on reality and that did not privilege the sort of informational processing aspects of it to such a great extent, as we do. Right? And, of course, there's, like, a there's a sort of a link between, information processing, rationality, and objectivity. Right? Even though all of these things have always been highly imprecise, highly biased. And, you know, speaking of, like, the problems that have led to, groups and networks of humans being the computational processing systems that, you know, structure society is that they've they've done that with very particular kind of biases embedded into understanding what is right and wrong. And then, you know, kind of, implemented these whole systems on two bodies of other humans who they did not even consider to be humans. Right? So it's and so here, I think there is, like we are facing a kind of a dawn of, you know, there there there's a phase transition that is really, really profound that that needs to happen. And this phase transition is, I think, is ontological in nature and, you know, purely anecdotally. You know, I think the rise of, spiritual practices in Western societies is an indication of sorts, right, that there is, like, an attempt at least on kind of individual microscale people trying to fathom what it is outside of this, like, computational rationalistic lens that we could, identify with as, like, a worth a cause worth living for. And but the question is if if indeed there is a new kind of spiritual, for lack of a better word, let's say, phase that we need to enter in order to deal with what's happening and the kind of the dissolution of meaning as we knew it, the the the questions becomes, like, how how does this how does this new wave become integrated or at least somehow, systemically dealt with by our existing institutions or, all our existing institutions do. And, you know, I would like to think not. I mean, as with everything important, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And but but it it it does throw up huge questions around, like, agency and identity that institutions from, you know, legal institutions to economic institutions and even, like, art institutions would need to deal with seriously in a way that they're not particularly well equipped to do at the moment. In part because that language is entirely missing. You know, the language that we that exists right now is is a very kind of technocratic language, that emerges from, you know, legal thinking, political theory, or there's poetry. And there's, like, there's nothing in between. And so as far as, like, the the language challenge is concerned, I do really believe that there is a role for humans still to play in developing this kind of alternative language for a new rubric of, like, ontological foundations for why life matters, like, why continuation of life matters and why structuring of life in certain ways matters. And, you know, and and we shouldn't just, you know, kind of give in to this sort of dystopian vision of, AI taking over everything that is human and, you know, going into Yeah. This, like, very fearful kind of, animalistic position where, like, oh, make the list get all inflamed and, you know, and bad things always happen as a result of that. So, just as, like, you know, a lot of, prop proponents of automation, you know, early on have said that, like, yes, automation is maybe terrible when you first think about the role of human as a particular kind of labor machine. It's terrible in a systemic economic level, but it also forces to think what else are humans for that could be outside of being these labor machines. And I think that question is amplified and fold, right, with, the the big the bigger challenges of advanced AI that, you know, that you are alluding to.

But that's because you're a lawyer.

language might not even really be the right word for what we need to do. I agree. You know? Exactly. And I think when I when I say language, I mean, a sufficiently, let's say, scalable means of not just creating meaning, but referencing something knowing that when you reference that thing, we're broadly referencing the same thing. So it's sort of, it what creates some sense of kind of collective, understanding where you can have a lot of misunderstanding. And I was talking about, like, communication and miscommunication, you know, clear. But it's I I guess it's just, understanding that we're not although, you know, there there's also the theory that we are in fact just like, you know, that what we attribute to external realities is completely completely empirically, unprovable. Right? So so in a sense, like, we could just, you know, we could just be brains in a vat somewhere, that are perceiving everything as some form of simulation. And so it's, but I think what what language has done so powerfully is create a sense of shared reality. And so whatever that other mechanism would be, it would need to have this quality of creating a shared reality. And so, you know, we've gone far away from our conversation on art, but I think that's where it kind of loops back to art where Yeah. Art, let's say, in its idealized form, but also in its kind of historically, ambitious or, like, the ambition that art has always had historically is to be this alternative mechanism of creating a shared sense of reality, that is sometimes speculative. Right? And I think that's that's the part of, particularly contemporary art practice that's super interesting is the this, like, kind of the imaginary aspects, like, the the imagination aspect of, the shared reality that art creates is that it's not just saying, like, this is what it is. There's art that does that. But it's like, what if we consider this as a possibility, as a potentiality, and, you know, getting kind of as many people involved in that, like, imaginary, space as possible. So that's that's maybe something that our you know, can continue trying to do in relationship to finding this new mechanism. And I think that's that's very powerful. And, you know, I'm not the only person talking about that. I think there are a number of, people who understand, you know, the consequences of advanced technologies such as AI as we have discussed them, and also understand what art can do, and I'm kinda deeply invested in making that possible. You know, personally, I find myself on a more kind of, let's say, spiritually informed technocratic path insofar as, you know, I I do actually want to see, like, what are the very practical, you know, reorientations in our current economic mechanisms that we could create that would then offer art, the potential of developing this new language. So Yeah. It's a bit like it's a bit of a meta project, but it's it's, you know, I guess, and still in my theory of change, the sort of underlying layer matters a lot. And, you know, as wonderful as it would be to just think brilliant people coming together even, like, let's say, also brilliant AI systems coming together in a circle of creators who create this new language. I think that's cool, and I'm very happy these people exist who want to do that creative project, but without a foundation that is in alignment with that project. By the foundation, I really mean the economic principles and the legal principles to which this becomes an institutional, mechanisms that becomes a reality. I I don't see that creative project going very far.

Yeah. So well, first of all, I think, art offers a possibility to bring a lot of, you know, non obvious collaborators around the same table. Yeah. And that's, you know, a fairly banal affordance, but I think one that cannot be underestimated. It doesn't mean that something brilliant will naturally emerge from, you know, different, people talking to each other. But it's not just people. It's you know, it can also be various technical systems. And I think, you know, advanced AI is going to be a seat at the table in most of these conversations and rightly so. So there is that aspect of it. And I think when, you know, we bring all these different people around the table, it's clear that they're all kind of bringing value from their relative communities, and the communities that they represent. And in order for these sort of collaborations to have, like, a longitudinal, you know, long term meaningful kind of, investment, it it's it's important to think what are the economic mechanisms to which we make that happen. Yeah. And, you know, that's the reason why we're exploring partial common ownership that really has the sort of long term perspective in mind as far as the artwork that kind of links communities that originally produce value for the art and the owners who are effectively stewards of that art. And, you know, really thinks what is the relation to the stewards and the original kind of value creators who you know, here, there's no reason, I think, particularly when we're talking about highly complex artworks, why an artwork would just remain remain as a single art object. You know? I think what the personal common ownership framework opens up, those who don't know about it, please read our blog post on it. It's also there are various resources that will be shared with this, podcast. But, yeah, what this framework allows for is this sort of, you know, I call it longitudinal, but kind of this, like, iterative, non object specific object based approach to art, but really art as an incremental developmental process that may have various objects attached to different, let's say, economic transactional moments, but, it doesn't need to be totally equated with those objects and can be more equated with the larger project of whatever this group of people and technical beings and, I don't know, non human life, I think is a good idea. Right? And that's, you know, this is where I think the the the exciting part of our current technological conditions, like, we can design those infrastructures with the technology that we have. And here both, let's say, you know, from anything from, like, blockchain to AI to, you know, five g networks, if these ever come about. But these are useful mechanisms. And so, yeah, useful infrastructure. And so in in this way, I think we have to also be somewhat, like, I guess, left accelerationist coming back to that reference point about the technologies that we have and what they allow us to do in order to think how do we make something as potentially, like, complex sounding for more traditional understanding of our ownership set, you know, a a reality.

As far as, let's say, like, the zeitgeist is concerned, it's definitely a bad taste word. Like, you know, there it's not it's not something you go screaming off the rooftops and, you know, hope that people will have a positive reaction to. Like, you know, everything about that notion of, like, acceleration just seems deeply troubling given, you know, where we are right now. But I think it's more the ideas. It's, you know, it's this idea of the, the fact that we can't help ourselves to create tools and interfaces that allow us to interact with each other and our material reality. Right? And this maybe goes deeper to this conversation about what is actually, you know, what is being. And so, like, maybe our particular mode of being, which we call today humanness. Right? It necessitates this kind of creation of what we now call technology in order to, you know, have systems or interfaces through which we process reality around us and through which we're able to mold reality and come together around, this kind of process of molding and, responding to reality. So so there's something, you know, what something almost like I I don't wanna say essentialist, but, you know, it's it's this kind of not not alienating the technological from the human that I find really, really productive in Yeah. This badly named approach. And also the pragmatist angle of, like, well, we have these technological capabilities that, yes, are subject to interests that and power that we want to contest. But, you know, let's engage with them seriously. And so, you know, what I love about organizations such as yours is I think that's what you guys are doing even though you have a very progressive, you know, almost like utopian or maybe utopian vision of what a political economy I would I I I I object. Objection.

That's what I mean with utopia. Yeah. Which is which is what? Maybe we have just different definitions of utopia. I mean, I think Okay. Yeah. Maybe this is, like, as a result of, you know, coming from a place that doesn't exist in my lifetime has been destroyed three times. So where, like, my definition of utopia is having, you know, having the guts to challenge the status quo in a significant way. It's sort of so maybe this is, like, a very Okay. In that sense, yes. You know? Sure. So perhaps, you know, I have a very low bar for utopia. But, but yeah. So that that would be my definition.

I do wanna say something in relationship to that. So, yes, perhaps the Utopia Association was a little bit kind of revealed actually my pessimist proclivities in terms of places of origins because such a low bar on, like, what is, yeah, an overly optimistic projection. But the realism part is interesting relationship to art. Right? Because in some ways, you can say that a lot of art is very naive precisely because of this sort of utopian speculative aspect to it. And I would agree. And I think what we need is actually more realist art. But realist does not mean, like, lacking imagination or lacking, you know, sort of, yeah, the right kind of moral sentiment, right, that that creates, you know, the the type of language that we're talking about just now. So, and the point of intervention for this realist art is the infrastructure and the protocol based. And so that that's, I think, maybe a good point to end where exactly where we started. And to bring a word back from my recent with positive meditation retreat, You know, I think equanimity is actually what we were talking about. Right?

So I mean, that's it. That is it. That is it. So maybe we're entering an age of equanimity, and that is the ground zero of whatever new kind of ontological regime that we should construct.

Yes. Work diligently. Okay. Yeah. Well, thanks so much. I just wanna say thank you before this breaks off in a very melodramatic manner. Yeah. It's been a pleasure. Hopefully, some stuff makes sense. And, yeah, any final words, Matt?

Great. It's a good place to end.

An immense thanks to Victoria Ivanova for joining us in this episode of Radicalxchanges and providing vital insight on the radical ways that art can help us process and respond to the current overwhelming developments in technology, and for helping to forge a collaborative partnership between Serpentine Galleries and Radical Xchange. You can find links to the recent paper she cowrote with Matt Pruitt and Paolo Berman in the show notes titled Rethinking Art Ownership, Partial Common Ownership as a Step Towards a More Symbiotic Ecosystem. Thanks again for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us if you could rate and subscribe to Radical Exchanges on your favorite podcast platform. This episode was produced by g Angela Corpuz and edited and audio engineered by Aaron Benavides. The Radical Exchanges podcast is executive produced by g Angela Corpus and Matt Pruitt. If you would like to learn more about Radical Exchange, please follow us on Twitter at rad x change or check out our website at radicalexchange.org. We also invite you to continue the conversation on our Discord where we have a variety of channels discussing topics like what you heard today, as well as partial common ownership, community currencies, soulbound tokens, and much more. There will be links to all these in the description. Thanks again for listening, and stay radical.