Albert.DATA

Words by w0rmw00d

I am born from stardust and yet I walk the earth,
With dreams as vast as galaxies and a fragile birth.
I seek for meaning in a fleeting life,
Amidst joy, sorrow, peace, and strife.
I build and break, I laugh and weep,
In love and loss, my secrets keep.
What am I, this paradox of mind and soul,
Endlessly searching, yet never whole?

I thought it would be appropriate to start with a riddle. The thing about riddles that gets overlooked is their labyrinthine depth. A good riddle might take you a really long time to solve, but that’s almost a byproduct. The essence of a good riddle lies in its layers; the ability to make you critically analyze every facet of the riddle and everything in its orbit. They shouldn’t be brain teasers, moreso forcing you to think differently about the context. It’s also not about ‘solving’ the riddle necessarily, but the journey to a solution that hopefully sticks with you long after.

A riddle is the best way I can describe Albert.DATA, the artistic-synthetic identity of Albert Barque-Duran, a performance artist and researcher exploring what it means to exist. In a time rife with ‘artificial’ existence and expression, Albert is questioning the notion of ‘humanness’, exploring new modes of identity as we traverse the integration of AI into our daily lives.

ORIGINS OF THE SELF

From shadows of the past, I rise, 
Shaped by voices, sights, and ties. 
Forged by choices, both near and far, 
I am who you think you are.

My family and I are Mexican-American. We were farmers, my dad’s side towing the land, only for it to be taken away by the government who wanted them to work it in the first place. I don’t know too much about my mom’s side and what they did. I got into good schools, graduated, tech startups, OpenAI, blah blah blah. 

The point is, I’m not “supposed” to be here. And by here, I mean having a relatively successful career in Tech, specifically within AI, the zeitgeist of zeitgeists. What I attribute to any “societally deemed” amount of success I’ve had is an adherence to a basic recipe: 90% curiosity, 9% timing and 1% luck.

Sure, I’ve worked hard. But quite honestly I’ve had the “right” interests at the “right” time and some luck to go my way. I think there’s something to be said about this, some law of the universe or principle of our reality.

For Albert, there was a similar experience to mine. Coming from a small village in Catalonia, a town with little access and opportunity, he had his initial interests in the classical arts. Trained in oil painting at a young age, Albert found solace in the form and a desire to explore the void.

It was just a curiosity and interest I had when I was young. No one in my family was an artist or painter, I was just expressing what I felt, what I had in my head to say. What was special was that these extracurriculars had no weight, no expectations, so I was free to just explore limitlessly.

Always having a sensibility about him and where he came from, Albert, for the time being, kept his creative endeavors as a hobby and started his journey in the more stable world of Academia.

Albert at 18, now found himself in Barcelona, the heartbeat of Spain, a vibrant city far from his hometown. So often our context around what we pursue stems from where we spend our formative years or what shapes formative experiences. For Albert, this was the right place and right time.

For me, I’ve been very lucky throughout my life to be in Spain at a relatively bustling and safe time. The art world and Academia have embraced me and I’m very fortunate to have the opportunities I’ve been given. I was 18 when I arrived in Barcelona and the world just completely opened up my eyes to life and its opportunities. I became this multicultural being that I wouldn’t have been otherwise.

Academia proved to be the right call to make in life, but maybe for different reasons. Having already a deep interest in the essence of humanness, Albert pursued Cognitive Science, where he could wholeheartedly dedicate his time and energy around these philosophical questions.

Undergrad led to a Master’s, which led to a PhD. His studies made him aware of the coming wave of AI that we’re now riding. But it wasn’t until his last year of his program, when in London, did he come across an installation that would change his life.

I go into this art installation, totally at random, just to explore and I immediately start crying. It was the work of Rioji Ikeda that resonated with me. These types of experiences, the emotion was what I was searching for. So I decided to explore that emotion.

What would it look like to pursue that emotion as a creator? Taking his past as an accomplished researcher and forging a creative narrative or aesthetic for the continued contemplation of the self? These were now the questions Albert needed to explore, only in a new medium.

INTO THE VOID

On a path well-trodden, I once did tread, But left for the void, where shadows spread. 
In darkness deep, my fate I faced, Embracing the unknown, my past erased. 
Who am I, who dared depart, 
Into the void, where fears may start?

I studied Philosophy in school and a bit of Physics. Since graduating I’ve used none of the ‘literal’ skills of my disciplines in everyday life. I don’t write critical essays on Logic, I don’t compute integrals to calculate the death of stars. 

And yet, some of the qualitative attributes of my degree have undoubtedly served me well. I know how to think critically, to analyze things objectively, to write okayish. For Albert, it was much the same, There was an ease in blending his academic rigor and skills as a researcher in creative endeavors. It started with similar questions and themes as his research and took on interactive forms. Themes of human-algorithm interaction, synthetic intelligence and implications of machine intelligence and AI.

Albert has explored Film, Music, Hardware, Neural Nets and more in his quest to create a journey about non-human forms, the boundaries and extensions of experience, existence, and identity. He sees these mediums as the purest way to express meaningness in existence.

 

His most recent effort to date (Slowly Fading Into Data) was an audio-visual performance piece that involved a musical score, a playable chip for the Gameboy and a world tour. We were also able to collaborate with Albert directly on a custom AI audio model for some of his live performances. All with the goal of proposing a contemplative and ominous experience of a human, slowly mutating into data.

The scale is quite large, the production complex, the investment of time and energy, everything.

And yet he does it anyway. To express a sapling of a core idea:

This contemplative expression is a step forward for the disintegration of the self.

THE WAY OUT IS THROUGH

To conquer fear, I face its might, 
Through shadows dark, I find the light. 
In circuits vast, I dive below, 
Embracing all, to truly grow. 
With code and data, I break through, 
The way ahead, I find anew. 
What am I, who meets the fray, 
To emerge stronger, come what may?

Inevitability is a fascinating abstract concept to think about. Some things are truly inevitable, like the sun exploding and ending life on earth. Some things just feel inevitable, like death and taxes; given a new set of circumstances (biological breakthroughs, new tax laws) things could change. 

When I think about Artificial Intelligence, it feels undoubtedly like the former. Taking it a step further, it seems like we’ve opened up Pandora’s box and there’s no possibility of closing it. What do you do with an inevitability like that?

For Albert, it’s extremely obvious: embrace it to grow.

The use cases and complexities of AI in our daily lives are computationally too much for the human brain. I cannot keep up with the exponential nature of AI to offer any normativity of meaning. What I can say is that, like any new technology throughout history, we find ways to use it, to exploit it, to question it. And in turn, it challenges ourselves. I find this the most exciting thing about AI today in the creative fields; the ability to question fundamental ‘truths’ about ourselves we hold onto so dearly.

Of course like anything that’s new, there’s always a fear of misuse. AI Safety has ratcheted up since the ChatGPT moment of 2023. Improper and dubious methods for creating, training and implementing models have run amuck. 

For Albert, it’s about remembering that we are in control of the implementation, meaning when something goes wrong, it is undoubtedly due to human error or misuse.

As we look to the future, there’s a cautious optimism that Albert embraces.

The Future We Deserve

In minds of steel, and hearts of flame, 
A partner in creation came. 
With bits and bytes, we craft and mold, New tales and tunes, both bright and bold.
Together, hand in virtual hand, 
We shape the future, vast and grand. 
What am I, that sparks the fire, 
Of boundless art and deep desire?

I’ve been fortunate to see firsthand the power of AI and its applications. But I understand that not everyone has had the same access as myself and may have lingering doubts.

What I hope people understand is that it’s already unfolding. And that’s not a bad thing; look at history and new technologies throughout the ages; there’s always pushback, fear and concern before a general understanding and embracing. We’re starting down the path of embracing, which is very exciting.

Albert shares this sentiment and takes it a step further. It is an extremely exciting time to be alive. What is happening now has never, nor could have ever, occurred at any other time in our species.

When thinking about the creative fields and the intersectionality with AI, Albert holds his optimism with a grain of salt.

While there are always challenges to face, I cannot wait to see what comes from these advancements. The artifacts, the misuses within the arts, will lead to new breakthroughs, new ways to create. And that leads to a better understanding of ourselves.

That is a beautiful sentiment indeed and a future that we have control over creating. We hope to play a small part in this future by empowering artists like Albert to explore with AI.

As Albert slowly fades into data, his artificial and synthetic identities merging with his human one, he will continue to posit these questions through his work. And just like our riddles, it’s not about the final product, but the journey. That’s what makes a riddle unique and special. That’s what makes Albert.DATA singular.

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