Events for October 2023

hris Van Allsburg is one of America’s most innovative picture book creators. Since 1979, his books have blurred the line between fantasy and reality. His illustrations are provocative and eerie, often hinting at an alternate reality lurking behind the next page. His book Jumanji and its sequel Zathura became a series of Hollywood films. His most recognized book, The Polar Express, was also adapted for the big screen and is one of the bestselling children’s books of all time.

This speaker event is recorded live on Thursday, October 19, 2023, at 5:30 pm in the Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI. If machines can ​“learn” or ​“process” individual and collective memories, can they also dream or hallucinate about them? Since 2016, world-renowned new media artist Refik Anadol has been exploring the relation between the human mind, aesthetics, machine learning technologies, and architecture to speculate responses to this question. Coining the terms ​“AI Data Painting,” ​“AI Data Sculpture,” and ​“latent cinema,” Anadol has been reflecting on new multi-sensory forms of narrating collective memory in physical and virtual spaces and inviting his audience to imagine alternative and dynamic realities. Anadol, a Turkish [...]