ConversAAtion: Generative Artists on Creativity, Algorithms, and AI

Asian American Arts Alliance (A4) is pleased to present a panel discussion among generative artists, that is, artists who create work with the use of nonhuman/autonomous systems. The panel will include poet Sasha Stiles, visual artist Emily Xie, and multidisciplinary artist collective elekhlekha. They will be sharing their experience and views using AI and algorithms to produce art, and provide brief demos of their work. The discussion will be moderated by Lisa Gold, Executive Director of A4. There will be time for Q&A.

This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP is required.

This location is ADA accessible. If you need ASL interpretation, large print, or any other accommodations for this event, please email jlee@aaartsalliance.org at least one week before the event.

Thank you to Pier 57 for donating their space for the event.

Panelists:
• Sasha Stiles, poet
• Emily Xie, visual artist
• elekhlekha (Kengchakaj Kengkarnka and Nitcha Tothong (fame)), multidisciplinary artist collective

Moderator:
• Lisa Gold, Executive Director, A4

BIOS:

SASHA STILES

Sasha Stiles, a Harvard and Oxford graduate, resides near New York City. She is a first-generation Kalmyk-American poet, language artist, and AI researcher, exploring the intersection of text and technology, and is known for her pioneering experiments with generative literature and blockchain poetics. In late 2021, Stiles released her debut book, Technelegy, co-authored by a custom AI-powered text generator; the book probes how technology has made us more and more human over time, and explores both the exhilaration and danger of our intimate relationship with the digital. Praised by Ray Kurzweil, among others, Technelegy serves as a touchstone for Stiles’ ongoing investigations of the posthuman. A co-founder of theVERSEverse, a web3 gallery and writers’ collective, Stiles showcases her multidimensional, transdisciplinary pieces in physical and virtual exhibitions worldwide. Her vision for the future of poetry goes beyond the literary and artistic to encompass the role that linguistic innovations have always played in the development of human consciousness, and the augmentation of human imagination. www.sashastiles.com

EMILY XIE

Emily Xie is a visual artist living in NYC. She works with algorithms to create lifelike textures and forms. She is interested in how disparate materials and patterns come together to create unified visuals, and the stories that each might bring into the fold. She draws inspiration from physical media such as textiles, collage, and wallpaper, and examines them within a digital context.
Her generative systems often navigate many delicate balances at once: the interplays between chance versus control, the organic versus the systematic, and the abstract versus the representational.

Xie’s creative coding work is collected and shown internationally. Recently, she has exhibited at the Singapore ArtScience Museum, Kunsthalle Zürich, Unit London, the Armory Show, Bright Moments, Times Square, the StandardVision Artist Showcase throughout the city of Los Angeles.

Prior to pursuing art full-time, Emily built a career as a software engineer while exploring and teaching herself creative coding on the side. xie-emily.com

elekhlekha

elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ is a collaborative research-based group consisting of immigrant Bangkok-born, Brooklyn-based artists, Kengchakaj–เก่งฉกาจ and Nitcha–ณิชชา. The collective delves into subversive storytelling by exploring non-hegemonic sounds and visual archives, historical research–decoding, and unlearning biases. elekhlekha’s work spans performing documents, multimedia, and technology centers to interrogate, experiment, explore, and define decolonized possibilities.

elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ is a Thai word that means dispersedly, chaos, unorganized, all over, and non-direction to break free our practices from being labeled through a Western lens.
They are currently based in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY). elekhlekha has received support from Babycastles, Culturehub, NEW INC, Rhizome, Processing Foundation, etc. In 2022, they were awarded The Lumen Prize Gold Award for their debut project, Jitr (จิตร), a performative audio-visual that utilizes historical research, Southeast Asian sound cultures, and live coding tools to reconcile Southeast Asia’s shared heritage. www.elekhlekha.xyz