srn2020oxford 26 Jul 2021 Adaptations, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Genres, Literature, Panel 5, Practice-led

Gee – Hybrid genres, hybrid practice: merging folk horror with artificial intelligence

Maxine Gee (Bournemouth University, UK)

Panel 10 – GENRES, CREATIVITY & EMOTIONS

Wednesday 8 September (Day 3), Session 1, 10 am

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Gee OPEN/DOWNLOAD

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1

philmathews on 26 Aug 2021 at 7:44 pm
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Hi Max, very interesting and great to hear about your next project. I have some questions that relate to the shifting representations of aliens in cinema from aggressor to a benign or unintentionally harmful, thinking of Annihilation and Arrival but also earlier Brother from another planet and super 8, this lads into the present problematic and negative representations of artificial intelligence as you identify and your interest in offering more positive examples. Do you think we are currently seeing a shift in representations of AI to more benign? Are Data and Vision an example of this?

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2

Mike Gibas on 1 Sep 2021 at 3:59 pm
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Fascinating presentation — and I was extremely frustrated by the video resolution that I couldn’t read the pages of your script. What I could make out was intriguing and I’d love to read more. A.I is a fascinating area in cinema and it has often blended with the quasi-mystical and quasi-religious on many occasions, from HAL in 2001 up to Spielberg’s pinocchio-influenced A.I; and like a God it is always a mix of benign and malevolent. I’m intrigued to see your ‘pagan’ blending of this. Do you think AI and even Alien stories are still deeply connected with ideas of God and religion? Or are we moving into another sphere altogether about societies responding to a seemingly all-knowing power that is quite possibly political?

While not horror related, the German RomCom “I’m Your Man’ reimagines the romantic comedy with an AI as the ‘object of desire’ (and a male object of desire, too) but makes some really interesting comments on the nature of algorithms satiating and delivering up our needs (like a God). In this film, the AI is far from being menacing but our heroine never really succumbs to its charms and always remains in control of her own life. In that respect, it is a positive representation of AI as some sort of facilitator towards greater personal responsibility rather than a simplistic solution. Odd that with this, and with Vision, AI’s are becoming some sort of new romantic hero!

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JT Velikovsky on 2 Sep 2021 at 8:26 pm
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Fascinating presentation (and, adaptation project), thanks for it Dr Gee. (The original `Wicker Man’ (1973) and `The Witch’ (2015) are indeed amazing, re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folk_horror). Your excellent paper also gave me some great ideas for: https://on-writering.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-ethisizer-design-sketch.html (i.e., see, down the bottom of that post). (It’s a real-life AI project, which aims to save the world from itself). May even be some ideas, hidden in there, for your [ie `first draft’; currently problematic] ending…? i.e. An `AI-positive ending’ that you mentioned preferring, rather than an AI-negative one… I too, think we humanimals should use our `intelligence amplifiers’ [AI] for good, rather than, for evil 🙂

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SRN 2021

Gee – Hybrid genres, hybrid practice: merging folk horror with artificial intelligence

READ ABSTRACT & BIOS

WATCH PRE-RECORDED PRESENTATION

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