Generation to Generation: Conversing with Kindred Technologies
By Nathaniel Stern & Sasha Stiles

Premiering at the Krasl Art Center
April 26 – July 27, 2025
Artist Panel with Nathaniel Stern and Sasha Stiles, April 26 3:00-4:00pm
Opening reception, April 26 4:00-6:00pm
Seeking other venues – email Nathaniel for information

Press release:

This groundbreaking exhibition illuminates the intertwined evolution of humanity and technology, inviting viewers to reconsider the relationship between humans and the tools we invent. By blending Artificial Intelligence with more traditional artistic expression, Generation to Generation: Conversing with Kindred Technologies cultivates new pathways for imagination while nurturing the roots of our creative inheritance, and the always-evolving dialogue between art and innovation. In the galleries viewers will find an immersive fusion of sculptures, prints, electronics, music, movement, and poetry, all born from creative collaboration with AI. Artists Nathaniel Stern and Sasha Stiles independently developed this project which premieres at Krasl Art Center, and will travel thereafter.

There are six site-conditioned installations on Generation to Generation: Conversing with Kindred Technologies.

A memento memoriae for the digital age, The E-Waste Land embodies the relationship between technology and remembrance. Installed at 10’ high x 15’ wide x 10’ deep in the round (variable depending on venue), the installation is an entangled organism of obsolescing computers, overhead projectors, landline phones, radios, monitors and other relics of human communication, all painted white in memoriam, and inscribed with ghostly excerpts from an AI-powered poem about progress and loss.

Some screens flicker, others are cold and still; as visitors explore the eerie landscape of human connection over time — decommissioned devices eternally haunted by the data they have processed and possessed.

The Word After Us is an AI-powered poem about the future of language, connection and understanding, “published” anew in each exhibition venue as a generative, modular mural.

Multimedia and shaped by any given space, this wall-based installation is comprised of a unique series of 12” x 12” frames containing fragments of poetic text. The contents range from digital and letterpress prints, to handmade papers made from drafts of the poem, to 3-D printed resin blocks and light boxes, to metallic letters forged from e-waste. No two frames are ever the same, and no two murals are ever alike.

Shown here is a sample install at 15×7 foot, an array of 78 framed prints.

Weighing (Mother Computer) is a material metaphor for the weight of technology’s ecological consequences. Each letter in the phrase “Mother Computer” is drawn by AI, then hand-forged of recovered metal from a broad range of recycled media: electronic waste, mine tailings, and more.

The resulting concrete poem is a hybrid of digital and analog, raw resources and engineered output. These tactile, sculptural letters are embedded in mounds of copper slag on 8 custom pedestals (total dimensions: 10 x 10 x 5 ft), and arranged so that viewers can engage and explore from all angles.

Feral Font is an interactive installation that invites viewers to practice writing a transhuman alphabet — the Neural Network Font Type (NNFT) used throughout the exhibition — created by a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) trained on hundreds of human letters.

Stencils, coloring books, crayons, markers, light boxes, tracing paper, and school desks remind us that machine learning is at the core of advanced AI, and provide a fun, engaging space to trace and discover the contours of our language as seen through the eyes of a machine. These shapes are familiar, yet also begin to grow wild and untamed in the imagination of an AI…

The font itself is also available via QR code for all visitors to download for free, and use as they wish. Download here.

Still Moving is a dynamic “mirror” built from web cams, an AI-powered poem and font, and custom-built motion tracking technology. Wave your hands and play in front of the camera(s), and watch as your movements are translated into poetry in real time — activating the space between human and machine.

In previous incarnations, Still Moving has been presented as an immersive 15-minute performance with sound and professional dancers. For this exhibition, it will live as a wall-based array of iPads on a wallpapered background. It can also be staged as a special performance as part of the exhibition programming.

Oral Binary is a walled-off listening booth within the gallery, where visitors are invited to put on headphones and enjoy an intimate performance of spoken word poetry and music created in collaboration with AI — fusing ancient oral tradition with cutting-edge tools.

This unique experience leverages binary code — the language of machines — as both a decision-making tool in composition and as a poetic metaphor, embodying how the simple computational system of 0s and 1s can open up a world of transcendent possibilities.

Oral Binary is installed as a screen and headphone sets, within a variable-sized wallpapered booth. The work can also be installed with an accompanying vinyl record and turntable.

Generation to Generation: What’s at stake?

AI is a transformational force in human history, akin to the rise of language itself, the printing press or our harnessing of electricity, unlocking new realms of imagination and awareness. Yet its discourse is fraught with fear, intimidation, misunderstanding, and disconnection.

Concern about AI’s biases and dangers are justified, but balanced understanding and optimistic intervention are essential. Generation to Generation intertwines art and technology to inspire constructive thinking about the power of AI to help strengthen creative imagination and reaffirm core human values.

A User’s Guide to Conversing with Kindred Technologies

The exhibition will be accompanied by a full-color, hardcover book edited by Charlotte Kent (arts writer for Artforum and The Brooklyn Rail, professor of visual culture, and Google Machine and Artist Intelligence grantee) and the artists, and designed by Gwen Knutson, with full texts of the poems in the exhibition and essay contributions from visionary thinkers including Claire Silver, Ivona Tau, Regina Harsanyi, Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, and Ian Wiese.

A User’s Guide to Conversing with Kindred Technologies will be released in Fall 2025. A pre-order link and images are forthcoming.