Building on the discussions sparked by the Into the Wild : AI’s in Retrograde panel, The Wilding AI Lab continues the conversation in a day-long experiment for artists, researchers, students and audiences to make AI wild again. Inspired by the glitch-ridden early days of generative AI, which fostered a unique time of artistic exploration half a decade ago, the lab resists reduction and futile attempts to ‘tame’ AI. As the Studio Hydro Quebec will be transformed into a living test environment, participants are invited to jointly explore imaginary and material alternatives to the energy-, resource-, and data-hungry AI paradigms driven by big tech corporations. In collaboration with Concordia University’s Milieux Institute and the Applied AI Institute, the lab aims to co-explore ways AI gone wild might manifest.

Situated, material and hands-on, the lab offers an open space for people to gather, and encounter each other and the lab’s manifold artistic and technological experiments, interventions and provocations. These include an opening talk by artist-researchers Beth Coleman, Romi Morrison, and Maurice Jones, followed by a generative, spatial sound demo by transdisciplinary artist Alexandre Saunier, and short think-and-feel provocations by Portrait XO and Marie-Ève Levasseur, all working at the critical forefront of algorithmic culture.Inviting the inaugural cohort of the GenAI Studio (Milieux Institute & Applied AI Institute), participants will be able to interact hands-on with various artistic prototypes utilizing tinyML and embodied AI technologies.