The Algorithmic Gaze (2019 - 2022)

Democratizing AI for artists and designers

The applications of artificial intelligence have permeated our society in recent years. Consider speech recognition, translation software, fraud detection, cancer cell detection, facial recognition and self-driving cars. Many of those applications teach the computer to look at the world.

In this research project we want to explore the creative applications of AI by gaining insight into the artificial thinking process of the computer. How can we, by "deciphering" the algorithms, get a view of "The Algorithmic Gaze" - the image that the computer has of the world, and how does this view influence our own view of reality? Is it a method that can create a new kind of innovative images or styles? Can a computer algorithm guide a creative process? And how do we democratize this research by simplifying the complex procedures so that they become accessible to a broad group of non-technical designers and artists?

In the project we collaborated with artists while developing algorithms and tools, such as the "Hunger of the Pine" project with Kristof Vrancken, exploring the destructive nature of the "typesetter" organism, reproduced using AI:

Hunger of the Pine. Kristof Vrancken and Lieven Menschaert (2021)
Hunger of the Pine. Kristof Vrancken and Lieven Menschaert (2021)

We developed GANDelve and Figment, allowing non-experts to prepare and train machine learning models with their own images.

Contributing Researchers

  • Frederik De Bleser
  • Lieven Menschaert