Paul Knight: Intimacy, AI and the galaxy

In the closing weeks of Paul Knight’s exhibition L’ombre de ton ombre, join guest speakers Professor Anthony Elliott, University of South Australia; Dr Shaune Lakin, National Gallery of Australia; and Dr Kyla McFarlane, University of Melbourne in conversation with MUMA Senior Curator, Pip Wallis in the MUMA gallery spaces.

L’ombre de ton ombre (The shadow of your shadow) is the first major survey exhibition of the Australian Berlin-based artist’s practice, bringing together photography, textiles and machine learning. Within works that traverse Knight’s relationship with his long-term partner, love might be the legacy that machine intelligence carries forward—beyond humanity itself.

Guest speakers will respond to L’ombre de ton ombre addressing photography’s relationship to time, the construction of intimacy, our yearning for a relationship with the natural world, and the ways that intelligent machines might affect human bonds.

Anthony Elliott AM writes about identity, society, globalisation and the digital revolution. The author and editor of over fifty books, he is Bradley Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of South Australia, where he is also Dean of External Engagement and Executive Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence. He is Super-Global Professor (Visiting) in the Graduate School of Human Relations at Keio University; a Fellow of both the UK and Australian Academies of Social Sciences; and Senior Member of King’s College, University of Cambridge. In 2023, Professor Elliott was appointed Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of his significant service to education and to social science policy and research. His recent books include The Culture of AI (2019), Making Sense of AI (2021), Algorithmic Intimacy (2023) and Algorithms of Anxiety: Fear in the Digital Age (2024).

Shaune Lakin is a writer and curator with a long engagement with photography. Currently Senior Curator, Photography at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Kamberri/Canberra, he was previously Senior Curator of Photography at the Australian War Memorial, Kamberri, where he wrote the first major history of Australian conflict photography, and Gallery Director at the Museum of Australian Photography (formerly Monash Gallery of Art), Naarm/Melbourne. Lakin collaborates regularly, often with fellow NGA Curator Anne O’Hehir. His curatorial practice tends to focus on histories of feminist photography and photography’s interactions with other media. Recent projects include exhibitions and publications on the work of Olive Cotton and Peter Maloney.

Kyla McFarlane is a curator and writer from Aotearoa New Zealand, living and working in Naarm/ Melbourne. She is currently Academic Engagement Manager in the Museums and Collections Department at the University of Melbourne, where she connects academics and students with exhibitions, collections and programs in the University’s Art Museums. She has held key curatorial positions at the Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, Meanjin/Brisbane; the Centre for Contemporary Photography, Naarm; and Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, Naarm. Over two decades, her curatorial and art writing practice has focussed primarily on lens-based, feminist, performative and emerging art practices in her region.

^{Image: Paul Knight, Naked Souls 2023, 2 OpenAI GPT-2 open-source artificial intelligence large language models (LLM), computer console, monitors, steel cabinets and sound. Co-commissioned by Monash University Museum of Art | MUMA, UNSW Galleries and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts. Courtesy of the artist and Neon Parc, Naarm/Melbourne. Installation view, Paul Knight: L'ombre de ton ombre, Monash University Museum of Art, Naarm/Melbourne, 2023. Photo: Christian Capurro}