Research

A continuous collaboration between the Centre for Augmented Reasoning (CAR), the Sia Furler Institute, and renowned artists forms the core of the Art Intelligence Agency (AIA). 

AIA, a public company limited by guarantee, was co-founded by Professor Thomas Hajdu, Professor Anton van den Hengel, and attorney Adrian Tisato.

AIA is a testament to the fascinating outcomes achievable when globally recognised, creatively audacious artists collaborate with CAR's machine learning scientists. AIA brings together leading individuals from the art, tech, and business sectors to cooperate at the cutting edge of artificial intelligence.

The Artist in Residence program aims to bring best-of-breed, globally recognised artists to collaborate with AI engineers on artworks and creative entrepreneurship projects.

Award-winning NYC avant-garde artist and creative pioneer Laurie Anderson was the inaugural artist-in-residence at Art Intelligence. During her residency,  Laurie Anderson collaborated with Art Intelligence Agency scientists on a lyric and prose generator fine-tuned on the work of Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed.

Ms Anderson also featured her work with the AIA in her third lecture, ‘The Rocks’ in the 2021 Norton Lecture Series, Harvard’s preeminent lecture series in the arts and humanities. .   In September 2021 through 2022, the Smithsonian Institution presented Anderson’s largest-ever U.S. exhibition. Laurie Anderson: The Weather showcases key artworks from across her half-century career, and like her European exhibition, it features new pieces created during her residency at the University.

One such artwork (Scroll) is an AI-generated Bible written in Anderson’s ‘voice’, produced as the result of AIML’s deep learning neural network being supplied with translations of Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic religious texts as well as Anderson’s own extensive written archive, under the direction and curation of the Art Intelligence Agency.

AI Agents is a podcast series exploring contemporary art and artificial intelligence intersections. Hosted by Tim Whiffen of Whimsy Productions, AI Agents represents the work of many respected contributors to the art and AI fields, including significant work by Carolyn Strauss, director of Slow Research Lab, in the early episodes titled "AI Murmurings".  

Some of the most recent episodes include:

• Ep 16: Agent Ramon Amaro - Can Machines Perceive in Totality?
• Ep 15: Agent Anthony Fraiser - Leveraging AI for Creative Content
• Ep 14: Agent Marcus du Sautoy - Formulating a Creative Outcome
• Ep 13: Agent Marian Mazzone - When AI Writes the History Books

Listen here

AI Agents on Apple Podcasts  AI Agents on Spotify

Art Intelligence’s annual hackathon is about collaboration, innovation and problem solving – art driving engineering, engineering driving art – at speed to get results.

The first Art Intelligence Initiative Hackathon took place in March 2020, with Laurie Anderson and Art Intelligence directors - Anton van den Hengel and Tom Hajdu - guiding engineers, artists, scientists, sociologists, architects, students, and more along a broad new path of renewal and early construction. 

The South Australian Blockchain Lab and Open Music Initiative bring businesses together to drive innovation in the still-evolving space of distributed network technologies. This project is led by Thomas Hajdu and Associate Professor Nick Falkner, Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology at the University of Adelaide.

The Open Music Initiative / South Australian Blockchain Lab aims to streamline music creators' and rights owners' identification and compensation processes. 

The Sia Furler Institute Artist in Residence program brings world-class artists to engage with students and share their experiences and expertise.

Jon Lemon completed his tenure in 2021 as the first Sia Furler Institute Artist in Residence. Jon is one of the music industry's leading and most experienced live-sound engineers.

He has worked with many of the world's most well-known and successful artists - Sia Furler, Christina Aguilera, Lana Del Rey, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins and The Cure, to name a few.

Through Thomas Hajdu's U.S.-based company Disrupter, the Sia Furler Institute has facilitated the provision of patents to University of Adelaide students. 

This allows students to move beyond studying existing works and empowers them to leverage real-world platforms to create new innovations.