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    Mark II spiking perceptron
    Reimagining Rosenblatt’s Perceptron through neuromorphic light based computation.
    Matthew Biederman
    +
    ChipAI
    Start of Residency
    End of Residency
    Artistic ProposalTech ProjectArtistOutcome
    ChipAI

    ChipAI explores a portfolio of future light-based nanotechnologies using cheap, ultra-small, efficient and fast light sources and detectors capable of being utilized in future brain-inspired systems and networks. These will offer great potential to improve the quality of life of European and international citizens through considerable scientific, economic and societal benefits. The main applications include artificial intelligence and machine learning, and high-bandwidth telecoms and so will contribute to a wide range of industrial sectors with global interest, e.g. information and communications technologies, healthcare, active and healthy ageing, agriculture, public administrations and transport. Notably, the research addressed by ChipAI project is driven by interdisciplinary collaborations between electrical and optical engineers, experimental and theoretical physicists and computer and machine learning scientists, and others. Being part of the interdisciplinary team of ChipAI’s project, the artist will have access to a creative and scientific environment and thinking. Importantly, the artist will have access to all the project’s technologies and data produced. This includes material samples and proof-of-concept prototypes, scientific reports, data sets, and sounds, videos and images produced by a complete set of state-of-the-art equipment.

    Mark II spiking perceptron

    In order to explore the intricacies of the ChipAI technology, the artist proposes to look back at one of the earliest forms of embedded AI technology, the Mark I Perceptron, developed by Frank Rosenblatt in 1957 at Cornell University. Rosenblatt, a neurobiologist who was interested in how the eye of a fly acted as both the sensor and processing unit for the fly to flee in certain situations. The Mark I perceptron was both a sensor and processing unit built in hardware that could identify objects placed in front of it. Using the methodology of the ChipAI system as a means of inspiration for a novel construction of a light and sound based installation, the artist plans to try and bridge the gap between one of the earliest forms of AI with new cutting-edge advancements.

    Matthew Biederman

    Matthew Biederman works across media and milieus, architectures and systems, communities and continents since 1990. He creates works where light, space, and sound reflect on the intricacies of perception. Since 2008 he is a co-founder of Arctic Perspective Initiative, with Marko Peljhan working on projects throughout the circumpolar region. Biederman was the recipient of the Bay Area Artist Award by New Langton Arts, First Place at Slovenia’s Break21 festival. He has served as artist-in-residence at a variety of institutions and institutes, including the Center for Experimental Television on numerous occasions, CMU’s CREATE lab, the Wave Farm and many more. His work has been featured at Lyon Biennale, Istanbul Design Biennial, The Tokyo Museum of Photography, ELEKTRA, MUTEK, Montreal Biennial (CA), Biennale of Digital Art (CA), SCAPE Bienniale (NZ) and the Moscow Biennale (RU), among many others.

    http://www.mbiederman.com
    See Profile

    In Mark II Perceptron, Matthew Biederman challenges us to reflect on the current state of artificial intelligence and its technological past. In this residency, he worked with ChipAI Project, a project that aims to develop an energy-efficient technology using neuron-like nanoscale light sources and detectors capable of addressing the predicted future needs of Artificial Intelligence systems and computing processors. Biederman proposed to look at the trajectory of machine learning and artificial intelligence from one of the earliest iterations, the Mark I Perceptron developed by Frank Rosenblatt in 1957, to the current research project ChipAI, aiming to highlight their common features, namely to establish that both the Mark I Perceptron and ChipAI have their foundation in biologic processes. One of the Artist’s signatures is to use the tools and methods he is exposed to during the art-science residencies he has undertaken by integrating them directly into the artworks produced as a result. The Mark II Perceptron residency resulted in an interactive, light-based sculpture reflecting on the biomorphic genesis and continuing field of machine learning and artificial intelligence. As viewers approach the sculpture, they see a fractured reflection of themselves, which sets off a chain reaction through the artwork – a simulation of a neural network that is witnessed in real-time through the flickering halos of light from behind each mirror. Waves of flickering light will pass over the surface of the sculpture interfering with the reflections of the viewers. By using the viewer’s own reflection within the work, and their presence to affect the spikes and flickers, the ‘life’ or biologic processes that are sought to be mimicked in AI is conveyed. Each movement by the viewers sets off new spikes, but due to the way the model reacts, it is unique each time creating new and unexpected relationships.

    Mid-term video

    Final video

    Read the final report Discover more on the blog