Intermedial semiotics in the age of artificial intelligence. Challenges and opportunities for the arts

Abstract

The intermedial synergies between art and technology have seduced numerous artists and intellectuals throughout history. The history of intermediality involves aspects regarding the material medium, closely related to changing technologies and apparatuses, the affordances of medium specificity, delivery mechanisms and channels, circulation and reception practices, and an entire ecology of production and use, embedded in particular institutional and sociocultural contexts. The hybridization and transdisciplinary exchanges between art and technology have given rise to novel forms of intermedial inquiry, enriching the co-creative process between human users and machines, and contributing to the exploration of aspects related to co-creation and distributed agency. From a semiotic perspective, this paper explores the inception of AI and the changes it brings to the intermedial scenario as related to the arts. Will AI help humans make new kinds of art, or is it more likely to emerge as a competitor for those working in creative industries? The paper is structured around the intermedial quality of AI, with an inquiry into co-creation as well as the divide or symbiosis between the ‘Natural’ and the ‘Artificial’, examined from a historical perspective. The second part of the paper explores examples of BioArt in their intersections with AI. Drawing on previous work by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Gilles Deleuze and N. Katherine Hayles, the research examines their contributions in relation to the notion of cognitive nonconsciousness and the potential imaginative capacity of AI.