Explore the intersection of art, artificial intelligence, and new technology. Through the diverse perspectives of three incredible artists, we will delve into unique opportunities that new technology presents for creative expression, activism, and the artists' evolving role in the 21st century. 

This event will offer exciting opportunities to interact with the artists and a realistic portrait-drawing robot built on 60,000 lines of code. Together, we will gain insight into the future of art and AI by fostering a deeper understanding of how technology is reshaping the art world, culture, and humanity's creative landscape.

Learn more: Read this New York Times article "Visions of A.I. Art From OpenAI's First Artist in Residence," including comments from speaker Hugh Leeman.

About the Speakers

Brett Amory is an interdisciplinary artist whose artistic practice is grounded in the intersection of quotidian and habitual engagements with the everyday world. Primarily working in painting and installation, he explores unnoticed moments and the ways in which digital technology reshapes them. Through his artistic endeavors, Amory navigates the complex relationship between the physical and digital realms, highlighting both the connections and disconnections inherent in contemporary life. Amory's work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including prestigious institutions such as the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art in Indiana, and the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. In 2017, he was selected as an artist in residence at San Francisco's de Young Museum. Amory holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stanford University and is also the recipient of the esteemed Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award.

Ahna Girshick is an artist-scientist whose art is inspired by the science of human and AI perception. She holds a Ph.D. in vision science from UC Berkeley, was a postdoctoral fellow at NYU’s Center for Neural Science and UC Berkeley’s Computer Science Department, has published more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and five patents, and was listed in RE•WORK’s 2019 “30 Influential Women Advancing AI.” She has exhibited her art at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), The Contemporary Jewish Museum (SF), Southern Exposure (SF), Hera Gallery (RI), Ely Center for Contemporary Art (New Haven) and the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art (CA).

Hugh Leeman is an artist and lecturer. He lectures regularly at Johns Hopkins University and Duke University in English and at Colorado State University in Spanish. Through art and technology, he created micro- entrepreneurial platforms connecting unhoused individuals and those who could buy their first iPhone. More recently, using his art and community activism, he co-founded aetatribes.org. Currently, he is collaborating with diverse communities using oral histories, artificial intelligence, and narrative art-making to preserve cultural knowledge and foster human connection.

Stephen Milborrow is a Bay Area artist and inventor. Originally from South Africa, he worked in high-tech for 15 years before devoting himself art. His current project is a portrait drawing machine that creates realistic pen-on-paper portraits much like a human artist. He will not be a speaker today, but is showing a realistic drawing machine in the library that will do drawings of people before and after the event.

Şerife Wong, a Turkish-Kānaka Maoli artist, leads Icarus Salon, a conceptual art organization focused on politics, culture and technology. Her work on AI has received several awards, including the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Berggruen Institute, Mozilla Foundation and Creative Capital. She is an affiliate of O'Neil Risk Consulting and Algorithmic Auditing, Kidd Lab UC Berkeley, and the Tech Diplomacy Network. She serves on the boards of Gray Area and Tech Inquiry, and is a frequent collaborator with the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. She is part of the San Francisco DJ collective Brass Tax.