AI Art Review: AI Nushu. The documentation of this piece shows…

The documentation of this piece shows more about how the AI system works. The training data is Nushu, a women’s script created and used by a group of Chinese women in premodern China. The output is AI Nushu, a constructed language no one can directly understand.

In its physical presentation, there are two circular screens. The two circular screens are like two robots in the shape of an eye. They can see, listen, and speak. They observe the environment and understand the environment because of computer vision AI built in and a camera involved. The camera input feed influences the AI nushu’s generative system, making the system open to the influence of the environment, speaking to the fact that language is usually formed under the influence of the environment. They chat with each other to discuss how this new AI nushu should be formed. In addition, there is a bigger screen in the background, which does not display the process of AI nushu generation, but it’s finally produced AI nushu characters, being put side by side with Chinese characters and English words.

The documentation shows that the work is presented in a computer science conference context, contrasting with presenting in a contemporary art context. If it’s shown in a contemporary art context, the audience is expected to be less technical and more interested in the cultural aspect of the work.

The cultural meaning of the work is to use contemporary form to talk about the patriarchy’s effect on women. Nushu was a response to the patriarchal society. From reading the documentation of AI Nushu, Nushu was created and used by a group of Chinese women in Hunan province in the past, where they were denied the opportunity to learn official Chinese characters. AI nushu as an artwork isn’t meant to be used by anyone in daily, it’s more about revealing the patriarchy that still thrive in many parts of the world.

What stands out is the deep merge of the generative computational linguistics process and the process of how Nushu was formed in the natural environment. Though it’s hard to understand for a non-technical audience, the rigorously spelled internal workings in the documentation video add delicate mystery to the piece, inspiring people to be curious about the wonderful internal workings of these AI systems.