Visiting Transmedia Artist Stephanie Dinkins explores “ecosystems based on care and social equity” through AI

“I am really trying to think through ideas and learn about the systems around us and how they impact communities — particularly Black communities and communities of color. [..] asking a community ‘What does AI need from you?’”

-Stephanie Dinkins, artist feature by the Guggenheim Museum in recognition of receiving the first LG Guggenheim Award.

Visiting artist and inclusive AI advocate Stephanie Dinkins delivers a public lecture on her use of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence to probe their impact on communities of color and advance “ecosystems based on care and social equity.” Join us on March 19 at 5 pm in Room S151 of our Main Building on 270 River Road. The lecture is free and open the public.

Dinkins is the Kusama Endowed Chair in Art at Stonybrook University and the recipient of various accolades, including the first LG Guggenheim Award presented by the Guggenheim Museum for groundbreaking artists working with technology. Recognizing Dinkins’s 20-year career, the Guggenheim proclaims “Stephanie’s pioneering work in artificial intelligence centers equity, transparency, and social engagement through an ethics of participation, dialogue, and care.”

Dinkins is a Visiting Artist at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, invited by the school to participate in a three-day interaction with students, faculty, and members of the UGA campus community.

Stephanie Dinkins, artist feature by the Guggenheim Museum in recognition of receiving the first LG Guggenheim Award.

Assistant Professor of Sculpture Kimberly Lyle, who is hosting Dinkins at the School of Art during her visit, was hired in the fall of 2023 under the UGA Presidential Interdisciplinary Faculty Hiring Initiative in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. Complimenting Dinkins’ investigations of systemic and social impacts of AI, Lyle’s practice “explores the implications of technology on our relationships with each other and the more than human world. Moving fluidly between tangible and digital processes, her work aims to re-imagine what technology can be and who it is for.”

Dinkins’ oeuvre includes ongoing projects like Conversations with Bina48 — a ten-year video interview with “Bina48 (Breakthrough Intelligence via Neural Architecture, 48 exaflops per second) an intelligent computer built by Terasem Movement Foundation that is said to be capable of independent thought and emotion.” Framed opposite this humanoid robot, Dinkins probes morality, life and death, consciousness, and the nature of transhumanism — the transfer of consciousness beyond our present embodied existence through science and technology.

In Not the Only One, Dinkins aims to create a new “conversant archive” by training a deep learning algorithm on three matrilineal generations of oral history in one family. According to the artist, “by centering oral history and creative storytelling methods, such as interactivity and verbal ingenuity, this project hopes to spark crucial conversations about AI and its impact on society, now and in the future.” In the next iteration of the project, Dinkins is developing an avatar that embodies the AI and drives questions of how its Black presence influences audience reception.

This event is presented by the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and by the UGA Humanities Council as part of the 2024 UGA Humanities Festival.

About the Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series

The Visiting Artist and Scholar Lecture Series has brought over 80 distinguished guests to the Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia since 2002. Visiting Artists and Scholars spend three days on campus interacting with students and faculty, the culmination of which is a public lecture on the subject of the artist’s or scholar’s work.

Artist bio

Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist who creates experiences that spark dialog about race, gender, aging, and our future histories. Her work in AI and other mediums uses emerging technologies and social collaboration to work toward technological ecosystems based on care and social equity. Dinkins’ experiences with and explorations of artificial intelligence have led to a deep interest in how algorithmic systems impact communities of color in particular and all of our futures more generally.

Dinkins’ experiments with AI have led full circle to recognize the stories, myths, and cultural perspectives, aka data, that we hold and share form and inform society and have done so for millennia. She has concluded that our stories are our algorithms. We must value, grow, respect, and collaborate with each other’s stories (data) to build care and broadly compassionate values into the technological ecosystems that increasingly support our future.

Dinkins teaches at Stony Brook University where she holds the Kusama Endowed Chair in Art. Dinkins earned an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is an alumna of the Whitney Independent Studies Program. She exhibits and publicly advocates for inclusive AI internationally at a broad spectrum of community, private, and institutional venues. Dinkins is a 2021 United States Artist Fellow and Knight Arts & Tech Fellow. Previous fellowships, residencies and support include the Artist Fellow of the Berggruen Institute and Lucas Artists Fellow in Visual Arts at Montalvo Art Center, CA, Onassis Foundation, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Creative Capital, Soros Equality Fellowship, Data and Society Research Institute Fellowship,  Sundance New Frontiers Story Lab, Eyebeam, Pioneer Works Tech Lab, NEW INC, Blue Mountain Center; The Laundromat Project; Santa Fe Art Institute and Art/Omi.

The New York Times featured Dinkins in its pages as an AI influencer. Wired, Art In America, Artsy,  Art21, Hyperallergic, the BBC, Wilson Quarterly, and a host of popular podcasts have recently highlighted Dinkins’ art and ideas.