The Intersection of AI and Art

My guest this week is artist & science communicator Margaret Wertheim.

(If you're loving Reality Studies, please leave us ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ or a review right now—it does wonders helping us reach new listeners!)

Margaret Wertheim is a science writer and artist whose work focuses on relations between science and the wider cultural landscape. With degrees in math and physics, she is animated by a view that science is a field of conceptual enchantment and a socially embedded activity. Wertheim is the author of seven books, including Pythagoras’s Trousers, a History of Physics and Religion; The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to the Internet; and Physics on the Fringe, an exploration of ‘outsider science.’ Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Guardian, Cabinet, Aeon, and many others. She and her sister Christine Wertheim are co-founders of the Institute For Figuring, a Los Angeles-based practice devoted to “the aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics.” Their Crochet Coral Reef project is the world’s largest participatory science+art endeavor, with over 25,000 participants in 50 cities and countries, that has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Helsinki Biennial, The Smithsonian (D.C.), Museum of Arts and Design (NYC), Museum Frieder Burda (Germany), Schlossmuseum Linz (Austria), and elsewhere. Margaret’s Reef TED Talk has been viewed 1.6 million times. She has worked on all seven continents and stood on the South Pole.

Margaret is one of the most exciting, iconoclastic thinkers I have ever encountered. No bio or preamble is really going to do justice to the breadth of scholarship, art, education, and staggering hybridity that comprises her practice.

I first brushed with her mind asynchronously, through her book the Pearly Gates of Cyberspace. The book examines how a society’s relationship to and understanding of space will influence how it imagines itself—and, written in the late ‘90s, what that meant in the early days of the web. One look at the evolution of digital culture since soundly proves out her thesis. But more than that it’s a journey through art, science, math, history, and philosophy that only a truly interdisciplinary mind could imagine. Each realm of her expertise in itself would be impressive; from mathematics to physics to art, but it’s her ability to synthesize these across different modalities that separates her from the rest.

Grab your copy of Pearly Gates here!

Maybe the most obvious example of this intermixing is in the crochet coral reef project, which she co-founded with her sister Christine Wertheim. It’s simultaneously a large-scale participatory art project, a work of astounding environmental activism, and a fun, accessible way to teach the public about the basics of curved space—inviting participants to reconsider their ability to learn mathematical concepts. But this applies to so much of Margaret’s work—take her latest exploration into the history and concept of “dimensions.”

With the rise of the large deep learning models we see in contemporary generative AI, which rely on multidimensionality, it’s never been more important to understand this concept, and Margaret is without a doubt the thinker to take us there—not just because she’s an expansive enough mind to understand the concepts, but the generosity to frame them in an accessible way for the public to understand them.

A lot of people talk about the importance of making complex subjects accessible to the public, but Margaret walks the walk. And you get a taste of that in this conversation.

If you’re loving the Urgent Futures podcast…

Please subscribe + leave a review on your preferred podcast platform! Both things help the podcast grow. Guests on Urgent Futures are experts across art, science, media, technology, AI, philosophy, economics, mathematics, anthropology, journalism, and more. We live in complex times; these are the voices who will help you orient to emerging futures.

🎧 Audio versions of the podcast can be found Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, please subscribe!

Support Reality Studies:

NOTE: Thank you for supporting my work by purchasing these products through the links provided. I will only ever share products I actually believe in.

Health & Wellness:

ZBiotics: Right now, get 10% off ZBiotics. Just head over to zbiotics.com and use code JESSEDAMIANI. If you have an evening with drinking and a morning you need to feel fresh, I strongly recommend these.

Genetically engineered by a team of PhD microbiologists, ZBiotics is a probiotic drink that breaks down the byproduct of alcohol responsible for rough mornings after drinking (acetaldehyde).

MUD\WTR: Right now, get 43% off starter packs using this link and the code SUMMER. There’s four different blends to choose from, but my current favorite is :rest. “This is our protest to hustle culture,” they say, and that resonates with me. Not only does it actually help me ramp down to sleep, but since I froth a little milk and make a latte with it, I get the warm cozy feeling of morning coffee at night. (For the evening tea drinkers out there: I’m not saying it’s better, just different!)

Mission Farms CBD: Mission Farms CBD crafts full-spectrum CBD products for specific conditions like sleep, stress, and discomfort, using a combination of CBD and terpenes found in essential oils. I swear by this stuff: I take one of their Marionberry Lemon gummies to end each day.

There’s a lot of junk CBD on the market. All of Mission Farms’s CBD comes from a small farm in Bend, Oregon. They farm the hemp organically, tend every plant by hand, and test for purity four times: the soil, the hemp, the hemp-extract, and the final products. This CBD is designed for wellness and it shows. Go to this link and sign up for emails to get 25% off your first order.

Digital Hygiene:

1Password: Listen, I know from personal experience that password managers don’t make for the most riveting dinner party conversation, but I need to express 3 things: 1) They make your life so much easier—it’s called “1Password” because once you get set up it’s the only password you’ll ever need to remember again. 2) They make your online life so much safer, ensuring that you use unique passwords for every account, stored with a high degree of encryption. 3) They are not nearly as complicated to set up as you think they are! Head over to 1Password using this link for a free trial, and individual plans for less than $3/mo after that.

NordVPN: Right now, get up to 69% off 2-year plans + a Saily eSIM data gift through this link. Some people tell me that “VPN” brings to mind ideas of hackers and the dark web, but honestly VPNs are just an extremely easy way to stay much safer online. I’ve used NordVPN for the past four years, and appreciate what they offer, including Threat Protection against malware, 24/7 customer support, fast speeds, and more. One account can protect up to 6 devices (phone and computer), and they don’t track or share what you do online. Another benefit: you can always access the content/apps you have at home, wherever in the world you are.

CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.

Find more episodes of Urgent Futures at: youtube.com/@UrgentFutures. Past conversations include Taylor Lorenz, Lia Halloran & Kip Thorne, Cherie Hu, Lisa Messeri, Legacy Russell, and more.