Dutch Design Week 2024: Navigating blurred realities

The Netherlands – The theme for the 2024 edition of Dutch Design Week is ‘Real Unreal’, which delves into the complexities of navigating blurred realities in the face of rapidly advancing technology. This is a topic LS:N Global recently explored in our latest macrotrend, The Synthocene Era.

At MU Hybrid Art House, the Poetics of Prompting exhibition examined how we communicate with machines using large language models such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. Artists were invited to question how we might interact with machines in more unpredictable and human-like ways, such as using speech instead of text-based prompts. The exhibition highlighted the positive potential of artificial intelligence. Multi-disciplinary artist Ren Loren Britton explored how the standardisation of spelling and language articulation in English limits the ‘magic’ that can be produced by people with dyslexia. Britton hopes new algorithms might make alternative forms of articulation acceptable, overcoming the restrictions of tools like spellcheck.

But not all exhibitors adopted such an optimistic view of AI’s future, with some raising concerns about data privacy and the nature of humanity. The Embassy of Digital Futures emphasised the limitations of these technologies, while Julia Janssen’s Mapping the Oblivion explored how the increasing use of algorithms in daily life creates a frictionless existence, thereby stifling originality. Similarly, Fix Your Phone Shop by Waag Futurelab highlighted the impact of smartphones on privacy, mental health and the environment. LS:N Global recently discussed these issues in Teens, Tech and Tapping Out.

Stay tuned for more daily coverage of Dutch Design Week 2024.