Beth Coleman Creates Octavia Butler AI: Exhibition awakens the beauty in AI, through a speculative lens

In a time where AI has both challenged and reshaped the way we navigate the world, an upcoming international exhibition debuts at the University of Toronto, that merge Generative AI and the work of Octavia Butler, one of literature’s most prolific science fiction authors, to reimagine the status quo set by AI systems.  

Created by artist, ICCIT professor, and recent JHI fellow, Beth Coleman, Reality was Whatever Happened: Butler AI and other Possible Worlds is an art exhibition and book inspired by Butler’s 1980 Xenogenesis trilogy. Coleman has designed an AI system that prompts us to reconsider race (human and alien), cognition and computability.  

In light of the recent conversations on AI, bias, and societal harms, Coleman uses a speculative lens to imagine alternative futures, framing Coleman’s conversation about contemporary AI-driven artistic practices and ethics in AI.  

Reality was Whatever Happened: Butler AI and other Possible Worlds will be on display at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Culture & Technology, in November Nov 2-4, 2023 and travel to international contemporary art venues in 2024. It will be accompanied by a book, published by K Verlag, an award-winning Berlin publisher. The project is supported by Google Artists & Intelligent Machines; the Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto; and the Canada Council for the Arts.  

Image credit: Alice Supreme / Alice Supreme Doppelganger B. Coleman 2023