Fictions d’IA | Chantier IA
Sporobole is delighted to welcome the artists from the Chantier IA fictions d’IA project! Maude Jarry, Tamara Krpic, Nicolas Rochette, Christiane Vadnais, Clément de Gaulejac, Mathilde Houisse, Aurélie Lemaire, and Alexandre Roy will explore practices in literature and illustration through the lens of issues underlying artificial intelligence (AI).
Generative artificial intelligence has been all over the media in recent months. The technological advances that have brought AI to the forefront of public attention—ChatGPT, Gemini, and other LLMs and generative algorithms that produce images, sounds, videos, text, or code—have made it so present, both in the imagination and in its concrete dimension, that it is now difficult to look back and imagine a pre-AI reality.
At the heart of this technological revolution and paradigm shift, mixed feelings color our attitudes, whatever they may be. Even though the entire artistic ecosystem—from collectives to cultural organizations to independent artists—seems to be affected by this technological shift, certain sectors could experience significant crises on various levels: business model overhaul, changes in value capture, shifts in legitimacy, and even a redefinition of the work of art. Despite all the ongoing lawsuits, an artistic future without generative AI seems less and less feasible. At best, major “agreements” will be sealed between companies and rights holders, legally guaranteeing the latter a symbolic sum in the name of copyright respect, as Spotify does, for example. At worst, legal exceptions regarding the use of protected works for training AI models will be put in place; some countries are considering doing so in the near future. It is therefore essential and urgent that the artistic community develop critical knowledge about what AI systems can and cannot do, and consider how it wishes, or does not wish, to use them. Ultimately, it must above all actively participate in defining what a world might look like in which art has had to negotiate its place and role with generative AI.
Help shape our relationship with art under the influence of AI
It was with the goal of opening up such a space for critical reflection, exploration, and experimentation that Sporobole launched the Chantier IA in 2024. The first year of the Chantier allowed a dozen artists from across Quebec to explore AI tools, their potential, their limitations, and to identify the impacts they could have on their practice through 4- to 10-week experimental residencies. An initial collaboration with the Department of Communication at the University of Sherbrooke also provided an opportunity to take a critical and reflective look at the influence of AI on the creative process. The second cohort of artists is completing its residency program. Once again, this group includes a dozen artists from the visual arts, music, dance, and film who have settled into our laboratories to reflect and explore, individually and collectively, the impacts of AI on their practices.
Supporting capacity building in literature and illustration
In light of our research projects, two sectors seem to us to be more profoundly affected by these technologies than those mentioned above. They were not deliberately addressed in our previous calls because, on the one hand, they probably deserve a specific approach and, on the other hand, the crisis is already having a significant impact on them. These are illustration and literature, two fields whose basic forms of expression, text and image, are easily produced today by most generative AI. The issue of AI in these sectors is explosive. It touches on the foundations of identity, value, and the conditions for creating art.
In order to provide a space where these artists feel safe and where the focus is more on critical reflection than on technical exploration of AI tools, Sporobole has decided to offer residencies tailored to these two sectors.
Creation of works in the form of design fiction and public debate on the relationship between AI, art, and artists
To this end, we have developed a collaboration with professors Julien Pierre and Dany Baillargeon from the Department of Communication at the University of Sherbrooke to structure and design a residency that will largely be based on a design fiction methodology, whereby the creation of speculative works will simultaneously address the relationship between artists, AI, and art in a context where AI is widespread. The result of this creation will be presented in the form of an exhibition-debate with the general public in June 2026.
With financial support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the project invites eight artists to imagine the future of their profession in 25 years in a world where AI technologies will play an important role. The artists will have access to workshops exploring AI tools in order to better understand how they work, their potential, and their limitations in Sporobole’s laboratories, thereby embodying critical thinking in practice. The degrees of collaboration with AI will be documented in a logbook.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)