Digital Divination: Machines and Humans Read/Write City North

In Digital Divinations: Machines and Humans Read / Write City North, a group of artists and researchers will come together for three days in December to conjure histories of City North from the digital ether. This collaboration between humans and AI will explore new possibilities of long-form writing.

AI generated image of Melbourne city in a historic style

Across three days in December, a group of artists and researchers will conjure histories of City North from the digital ether. In this networked excavation of the Innovation Precinct's past, AI technologies will serve as mystical medium, channeling fragments of history through the neural networks of machine minds. From data séances to algorithmic archaeology, our digital diviners will pilot their AI familiars through binary backstreets, unearthing tales that exist somewhere between memory and mathematics, fact and fabrication. Far from a historically accurate reconstruction, this is an experiment in algorithmic remembering, where multiple visions of City North's past will emerge from the intersection of human creativity and machine memory. Each explorer will navigate this computational dreamscape to reconstruct places and lives from probabilistic particles, weaving histories that hover tantalisingly between the real and the hallucinated.

People can drop drop in any time and witness this project as it unfolds. There will be emergent materials to read and view and the chance to chat with the artists and researchers. There will be 'story time' each day at 12.30 p.m where elements of the work-in-progress will be read aloud for 15 minutes.

  • Dates: Wednesday 4th, Thursday 5th & Friday 6th December 2024
  • Time: 10:00AM - 3:00PM each day (including 1 hour lunch break)

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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