Exhibition Opening: Listen, Scoundrels!

Sean Carroll explains how AI-assisted archival enquiry informs Listen, Scoundrels!, an exhibition drawn from the Computer Arts Society’s Page bulletin. Rather than prioritise automated cataloguing, his research explores how generative tools support interpretation and exhibition making. Drawing on ideas of intertextuality and the reader’s role in producing meaning, he treats archival encounters as opportunities for new connections rather than recovery of an authoritative narrative. Repeated audio overviews generated with NotebookLM reveal a confrontational poem he overlooks in French, redirecting an initial project about reconstructing early algorithms towards radical debates within the society. Further questioning, thematic analysis and checks against source material shape quotations and five calls to action, with ChatGPT contributing their final headings. Collaged visual material and a book-first design echo the original publication’s construction. Discussion tests both the method and its conclusions, addressing hallucination, statistical averaging, anthropomorphism and the curator’s responsibility for selection. Participants debate whether technology remains merely a tool or changes human identity, and whether artistic intention excludes non-human creativity. The calls challenge institutional apathy, technocracy, technological dependence and art-market constraints while advocating intervention in the world. Their contemporary relevance prompts disagreement about how faithfully they represent the society’s diverse history and what critical engagement requires.

AI Generated Summary