AI-Related Project Topics Announced for 7x7 2024 Presented by Rhizome and Hyundai Motor

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Hyundai Motor, Rhizome, and the New Museum today announce additional details for Seven on Seven (7x7), the iconic art and technology program returning to the New Museum on January 27, 2024. 7x7 pairs leading artists with visionary technologists and tasks them with a simple challenge: make something new. The results are presented at a public, experiential conference.

The 2024 edition of 7x7 will focus on AI and is co-organized by Michael Connor, Co-Executive Director of Rhizome, and Xinran Yuan, independent curator and producer. This is the first in-person edition of 7x7 to be held since 2019 and is presented by Hyundai Motor through an ongoing partnership with Rhizome of the New Museum.

Hyundai Motor's partnership with Rhizome of the New Museum began in 2021 with World on a Wire, an internationally touring exhibition and online project that included a series of artist commissions. World on a Wire explored simulation as artistic practice, with a particular emphasis on augmented reality and virtual reality. The partnership, which was founded in an effort to explore the infinite possibilities arising from the convergence of art and technology, continues in 2024 with the relaunch of Rhizome's legendary 7x7 program. This edition includes a new focus on AI, underscoring Hyundai Motor's dedication to fostering innovation and creativity by championing visionary creators and artists.

7x7 2024 draws together creative pairings from across disciplines to consider how AI may alter our understanding of love, humor, and improvisation; biology, politics, and histories. Among these collaborative projects, 7x7 2024 will feature an experimental performance created with Boston Dynamics' Spot® The Agile Mobile Robot.

The 7x7 2024 participants and their topics are:

Quantum physicist Dr. Stephon Alexander and comedian and musician Reggie Watts experiment with improvisation as a way to understand connections among physics, creativity, and AI.
Boston Dynamics Director of Human-Robot Interaction David Robert and artist Miriam Simun explore connection between humans and non-humans through a performance featuring Spot® - The Agile Mobile Robot, with support from Field Application Specialist Hannah Rossi.
Runway Co-Founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela and comedian, writer, and actor Ana Fabrega ask if AI can be funny, on the heels of the recent Writers Guild of America agreement with major Hollywood studios that ratified worker protections around AI.
Replika AI Founder and CEO Eugenia Kuyda and artist Lynn Hershman Leeson collaborate on a science-fiction narrative in which AI relationships play a central role.
Nym Technologies Co-Founder and CEO Harry Halpin and artist Tomás Saraceno consider technology's role in organizational decision-making for communities facing climate-related conflict and upheaval.
Ginkgo Bioworks Head of Creative Christina Agapakis and artist Xin Liu embark on a journey of creating a protein and delve into the hidden layers of the biological system that AI might uncover.
Engineer and environmental entrepreneur Alan Steremberg and artist Rindon Johnson use data for storytelling, drawing on information about plastics, plankton, and other conditions in the Pacific Ocean.

"Neural networks and other AI systems have long been topics of note at 7x7. With these technologies now widely available, 7x7 2024 takes an expansive but critical view of their role in society," notes Rhizome Co-Executive Director Michael Connor. "The participants look beyond the dreams of apocalypse and the endless drive to extract, and ask, what new kinds of collaborations and entanglements will AI enable?"

Since its inception in 2010, 7x7 has been a catalyst in the evolution of art and technology collaboration, often acting as a mirror of significant cultural contexts and an indicator of emerging trends in our increasingly technological society. The site of the creation of the first NFT by artist Kevin McCoy and technologist Anil Dash in 2014, 7x7 has catalyzed some of the earliest creative experimentations and critical engagements with machine learning, blockchain, and social media technologies. Past participants include Ai Weiwei, American Artist, Alex Chung, Miranda July, David Karp, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Trevor McFedries, Jonah Peretti, Aza Raskin, Tabita Rezaire, Hito Steyerl, Martine Syms, and Meredith Whittaker, to name a few.

"In recent years, the art and tech ecosystem has expanded to encompass a wider range of institutions, companies, and stakeholders. The relationship between artists and technologies, platforms, and collaborations has grown increasingly complex," states Xinran Yuan, Producer and Co-Curator of 7x7 2024. "To plan the 2024 edition in this evolving context, we spent time refocusing on what makes 7x7 unique: it is a risk-tolerant, experimental, and most importantly, public forum. Here, what is foregrounded is not only the intriguing outcomes of such collaborations, but also the negotiations, uncertainties, even failures that are integral to the shaping of these collaborative ideas, knowledge, and creations."

"As part of our twenty-year affiliation with Rhizome, the New Museum is gratified to convene this critical gathering on a topic of such importance to contemporary culture," said Lisa Phillips, Toby Devan Lewis Director of the New Museum. "7x7 has long been a key part of our vision to make the New Museum a campus for new art and new ideas, supporting not only the display of art but knowledge creation in many forms."

"Through our continuing partnership with Rhizome of the New Museum, Hyundai Motor builds on years of forming deep connections with leading global art institutions and communities," says DooEun Choi, Art Director at Hyundai Motor. "In working with Rhizome of the New Museum for this relaunch, we aim to bring this iconic program to a new level and to a new global audience, surfacing the issues in art and technology that shape our culture and society towards the future through dialogue, collaboration, and transformative experiences of art."

Visionary partners for 7x7 are project partner SMK-National Gallery of Denmark, supporting the pairing of Eugenia Kuyda and Lynn Hershman Leeson, and research partner APOSSIBLE, which is exploring connections between 7x7 collaborations and the fields of neuroscience and psychology.

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