Exhibition marks multi-year collaboration with prestigious Shanghai Museum
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A joint exhibition by Goldsmiths and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Shanghai marks the first output of a multi-year collaboration between the creative powerhouses which is aimed at exploring the relationship between art and science.
Professor David Oswell, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor, joined the chair of MoCA Shanghai Samuel Kung at the MOU signing
Coinciding with London Tech Week, the Codes of Tides exhibition displays the work of 10 London and Shanghai-based artists which explore innovative intersections across AI programming, environmental ecology, finance, biology, and humanities, offering a visionary examination of our interconnected future.
Focusing on the theme of water, the artists' work is shaped by data collected from the Huangpu River and the River Thames as well as financial data from the Shanghai and London Stock Exchange.
The exhibition will reveal how the use of AI algorithms to visualise data can combine with artificial expression to generate a new and emerging artistic language for both the present and the future
Miriam Sun, Executive Director of MoCA Shanghai
Since its creation 20 years ago, MoCA Shanghai has been dedicated to promoting and encouraging inter-disciplinary approaches that go beyond the boundaries of contemporary art.
In the AI era it has actively followed technological developments promoting projects that integrates science and art. Goldsmiths is a pioneer in computational art, establishing the first degree programme in the UK and as a leading centre of research.
"As one of the pioneers of research and teaching in computational art, our collaboration with Goldsmiths is unique. It's the first formal partnership between MoCA Shanghai and a UK university," Miriam Sun concluded.
Professor David Oswell, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange who signed the Memorandum, said: “With Goldsmiths’ unrivalled expertise and pioneering track record in computational art it’s no surprise that MoCA Shanghai pinpointed us for this unique multi-year collaboration.
The MOU, like the exhibition, will support the flow of creative ideas and people. It brings closer together east and west, China and the UK, and art, technology, and science. In doing so, it deepens the learning across our nations and civilisations
Professor David Oswell, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Professor William Latham, the exhibition's co-curator, was a pioneer of generative art in the 1980s. His Mutator Art – that fuses natural evolution with digital technology – forms part of the exhibition. The interplay between technology and creativity will form the basis of discussions between artists and academics at a forum linked to the exhibition.
Professor Latham said: "The exhibition and the accompanying discussions repose questions about whether computers can be more creative than humans. It's both a current and contentious topic of debate that we hope to find the answers to both in our fora but also in the ongoing collaboration we have with MoCA Shanghai."
The exhibition is the first outcome of a collaborative agreement between Goldsmiths and MoCA Shanghai which will see academic and artist exchanges between London and Shanghai and a successor exhibition in China planned for late September. The collaboration aims to support emerging artists through residency programmes as well as being a platform for international forums that can bring artists, scientists and researchers from both countries together.