James Sham, Neil Rubens, Brian Korgel, Patrick Killoran
Patent-Bot is an artificial intelligence (A.I.) software program that writes original patents to be submitted to the United States Patent Office for consideration. The program analyzes the database of accepted patents and produces original patents based on a variety of metrics. The US patent archive offers a database of exemplars that help train Patent-Bot to find new ideas, as well as formulate them in some semblance of intelligible text. Patent-Bot exploits the mechanical language employed in the conventional patent application to automate parts of the innovation process. The likelihood of the Patent-Bot expressing intelligible ideas increases in a forum where the linguistic conceits tend toward the mechanical and technical. Capable of producing at least 50,000 patent summaries a second, Patent-Bot is itself a piece of intellectual property, which in turn exists to generate more intellectual property. As a by-product of learning language from the patent database, PatentBot occasionally invents new words for future concepts based on diction used in successful patent applications. The installation includes a component with an audio listening station defining these neologisms or “nonce” words in context.
Visitors can participate by typing in ‘seed’ words, which will prompt the Patent-Bot to compose original summaries of patent applications. These ‘seed words’ serve as starting points for the algorithm’s computation of the text variations. Within seconds, hundreds of thousands of inventions are compiled. The viewer is welcome to print and take them away.
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James Sham
http://www.jamessham.comThe George Washington University, The Department of Fine Arts and Art History
James Sham is an inter-disciplinary artist whose research includes themes of translation, performance, social practice and innovation. Sham’s work involves multiple areas of focus from goldfish pigment extraction, to Artificial Intelligence, and using eye-tracking technology to study Interpretation in deaf culture. He is the inventor of a newly published innovation in the field of photovoltaics—the patent-pending “Solar Paper”. His work has been exhibited in venues as diverse as White Box Gallery (New York), Appetite Gallery (Buenos Aires), Kunstprojects (Berlin), The Open Works Institute (Bucharest), and the Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia) among others. His video work has been screened and published on European Cable Network Broadcast (Germany and France), the Ellensburg Film Festival (Seattle) and the Northwest film Forum (Seattle). Additionally, Sham has completed a number of residency programs including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and the Core Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Having received his MFA in Sculpture and Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2008, and his BA in Studio Art and Philosophy from Dartmouth College in 2005, Sham is currently an Assistant Professor of Innovation Arts in the Corcoran School or Art and Design at the George Washington University.
Neil Rubens
Japan
Prof. Rubens studies how AI could be utilized in the process of innovation. In particular, he works on developing methods that accelerate innovation diffusion across industries. In his free time, he collaborates with artists in trying to push the boundaries at the intersection of AI and creativity. He is a co-founder of the Innovation Ecosystems Network at mediaX at Stanford University. He teaches at the department of Computer Science, and the department of Management at the Transport and Telecommunication Institute. Dr. Rubens authored chapters on the topics of machine learning, active learning and recommender systems published by MIT Press and Springer. His research has been supported by funding from corporations and governments of Japan, US, Russia, Finland and Sweden.
Brian Korgel
The University of Texas at Austin, The McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering
United States
Brian A. Korgel is the Edward S. Hyman Chair in Engineering and T. Brockett Hudson Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. He directs the Industry/University Research Center (I/UCRC) for Next Generation Photovoltaics and the Emerging Technologies area of the UT|Portugal program; he is the Education Director for the Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials MRSEC at UT Austin; and he is an Associate Editor of Chemistry of Materials. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from UCLA in 1997 and was a post-doctoral fellow at University College Dublin, Ireland, in the Department of Chemistry. He works at the intersection of nano & mesoscopic materials chemistry and complex fluids, tackling problems in energy storage, chemical transformations, energy harvesting and conversion, and medicine. He is also an artist, exploring collaboration, language and human-artificial intelligence/robot cohabitation. He has published more than 250 papers and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Alicante in Spain, the Université Josef Fourier in France and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. He has co-founded two companies, Innovalight and Piñon Technologies, and received various honors including the Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and election to Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Patrick Killoran
http://www.patrickkilloran.com
United States
Patrick Killoran is an American visual artist who lives and works in New York City. He has exhibited projects at PS1 MOMA and Sculpture Center. His installation Immergence was presented at Las Cienegas Projects in Los Angeles in 2009 and since 2010 has been installed at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. In 2014, he had solo exhibition a Samuel Freeman Gallery in Los Angeles and in 2015 at Studio 10 in Brooklyn. Other solo projects include the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, US; IKON in Birmingham, UK; Samuel Freeman Gallery in Los Angeles, US. Killoran has been included in numerous international exhibitions, including Everyday, the 1998 Biennial of Sydney, Australia; Wanås 2000 at the Wanås Foundation in Sweden; It is what it is. Or is it? at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, US; The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else at the Witte de With in Rotterdam, Netherlands and in 2017 he participated in the exhibition Omnibus Filing in Austin Texas, US.
Grants received include Rema Hort Mann Foundation, Penny McCall Foundation and Pick Laudati Funds for Arts Computing at the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities at Northwestern University. In 1998 he attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in 2007. In 2013, he was the Artist-in-Residence at George Washington University. In 2014-17 he was the Artist-in-Residence at the RDP Innovation Arts Residency Program, University of Texas, Austin. Killoran has taught at CalArts and Northwestern University. Currently he is the 2017 External Examiner at the Iceland Academy of the Arts and since 2012 a Critic at Yale University School of Art, Sculpture.