Machines That Dream
Benjamin David Robert Bogart
Watching and Dreaming is a body of work that enables the viewer to peer inside the “mind” of a machine to observe its perceptions, mind wanderings, and dreams. This is not a metaphorical representation of dreams, nor a technical exercise in AI such as DeepDream [1] but the realization of a computational model of dreaming informed by cognitive neuroscience. This level of description avoids biases towards Jungian and Freudian psychology that assume dreaming is exclusively human. Dreams should not be considered independently of the perceptual capacities of the dreamer, and thus comparing this model to human perceptual abilities is problematic. For the audience, these artworks function as entry-points to consider the constructed nature of perceptions and the continuity of waking, mind wandering, and dreaming. For the artist, the artworks are sites of knowledge-making; it is through the making of artistic works that the model (computational formalization) and theory (argument that situates the model in empirical knowledge) are developed. The research underlying these artworks integrates knowledge in multiple disciplinary dimensions: (a) The computational modeling of dreaming processes (Zhang 2009; Treur 2011), (b) generative and media artworks engaging with the concept of memory and dreaming (Franco 2007; Dörfelt 2011), and (c) the conception of dreaming as imagination (Nir and Tononi 2010). In this text, Watching and Dreaming (2001: A Space Odyssey) (2014) serves as an exemplar of the Watching and Dreaming body of work. The machine attempts to learn and predict Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey through the construction of its own subjective perception that is the basis of dreaming. “Mental” images generated during perception, mind wandering, and dreaming are subjective constructions bound to the peculiarities of the machine’s way of seeing. The body of work constitutes various manifestations of the cognitive model, not attempts to communicate the model’s mechanisms.
Completed
Between September 2009 and April 2014
Sites and Institutions
School of Interactive Arts and Technology, Simon Fraser University |
Commentaries
Author commentary by Benjamin David Robert Bogart |
Keywords
Dreaming Mind Wandering Generative Art Site Specific Art Art As Research Cognitive Science
Disciplines
Digital Media Arts Neuroscience Computer Science Photography Cognitive Science Generative Art
References
Acknowledgements
The theory and computational model were developed in the Metacreation, Agents and Multi-Agent Systems lab at Simon Fraser University in collaboration with Dr. Steven Barnes (University of British Columbia) and Dr. Philippe Pasquier (Simon Fraser University). The research was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
A Reflection on 'Machines that Dream'
Author commentary by Benjamin David Robert Bogart
The Watching and Dreaming body of work links AI with the apparent irrationality of dreams. The work is located at a paradoxical intersection of knowledge creation; the emphasis on formalism in computer science, the reductionism and empiricism in cognitive neuroscience, and the open-endedness and fluidity of artistic practice cannot be resolved as merely multidisciplinary.
I frame my doctoral work (Bogart 2014b), in which dreaming machines were initially developed, as art-as-research (Busch 2009) where I center the knowledge-generating capacity of artistic practices, make use of specialized knowledge, and consider argument the central pillar of all research. My aim is not merely to make use of knowledge in cognitive neuroscience, but to contribute through the generative capacity of artistic practice. This goal has not been satisfied, as validating a theory developed through art-as-research is challenging; for the Integrative Theory to be validated in cognitive neuroscience, empirical validation and quantitative analysis are required. Adhering to these disciplinary norms would elevate their primacy; I would be conducting science, not art-as-research. The richness and breadth of the computational model make it unamenable to reductionism and empirical validation. It is unclear what aspects of dreaming should be validated; waking/dreaming dynamics? Integration of waking "experience" in dreaming? Realism or causality in dreams? While this work has been worthy of citation by specialists, e.g. Davies (2019), it is not publishable in the disciplinary literature because of its lack of adherence to disciplinary methods. When publishing in interdisciplinary contexts, such as this one, the depth of my engagement with the cognitive neuroscience literature and its support of my argument are not easily communicated for a non-specialist audience. The work remains in limbo, unpublished in disciplinary contexts and merely summarized in interdisciplinary journals.
Artistic practice—with its interdisciplinarity, emphasis on richness and complexity, and lack of prescription of methods and outcomes—is the backbone for art-as-research. My doctoral work has led to peer-reviewed publications (Bogart and Pasquier 2011; Bogart and Pasquier 2013a; Bogart, Pasquier, and Barnes 2013; Bogart 2017a; Bogart 2017b) and peer-reviewed exhibitions (Bogart 2012; Bogart and Pasquier 2013b; Bogart 2014a), as well as talks and an ongoing body of work. Each of these outcomes have different audiences and different degrees of viewer engagement. No single outcome is a primary site for audience engagement with the knowledge produced through this art-as-research.
The very notion of validation in research requires the deployment of well-entrenched methods situated in stable disciplines. Projects such as this push boundaries without subscribing to the supremacy of methods of one domain over another. Validation according to the methods of all constituent disciplines may be unattainable. This project begs deep questions for interdisciplinary and arts-integrative research, such as: How can a radical inter- or a- disciplinary art-as-research practice exist if contributions can only be validated within disciplinary traditions? What becomes of specialist knowledge developed within a practice when it is not appreciated nor accessible outside of that discipline? Is there a place for a creative knowledge-generating art-as-research practice rooted in argument but independent of disciplinary methods of validation?
The most concise and complete description of the theory requires cognitive neuroscience literacy and remains unpublished:
Bogart-An-Integrative-Theory-and-Computational-Model-of-Visual-Mentation.pdf
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