Kate Crawford & Trevor Paglen: Training Humans @ Osservatorio Fondazione Prada In Milan

Training Humans, conceived by Kate Crawford, AI researcher and professor, and Trevor Paglen, artist and researcher, is the first major photography exhibition devoted to training images: the collections of photos used by scientists to train artificial intelligence (AI) systems in how to “see” and categorize the world.

In this exhibition, Crawford and Paglen reveal the evolution of training image sets from the 1960s to today. As stated by Trevor Paglen, “when we first started conceptualizing this exhibition over two years ago, we wanted to tell a story about the history of images used to ‘recognize’ humans in computer vision and AI systems. We weren’t interested in either the hyped, marketing version of AI nor the tales of dystopian robot futures.” Kate Crawford observed, “We wanted to engage with the materiality of AI, and to take those everyday images seriously as a part of a rapidly evolving machinic visual culture. That required us to open up the black boxes and look at how these ‘engines of seeing’ currently operate”. Training Humans is on view through February 24 2020 at Osservatorio Fondazione Prada Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 20121 Milano

Fondazione Prada presents “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” @ The Osservatorio In Milan

Fondazione Prada’s “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” (Surrogate. A Love Ideal) comprises a selection of 42 photographic works by Jamie Diamond (Brooklyn, USA, 1983) and Elena Dorfman (Boston, USA, 1965.) The project explores the notions of familial, romantic and sexual love. Both artists focus on a specific and unconventional aspect of this universal theme: the emotional link between a man or a woman and a synthetic representation of a human. As explained by Melissa Harris, “together, Diamond’s and Dorfman’s work presented in ‘Surrogati’ vividly and non-judgmentally documents the interactions of humans with their lifelike, inanimate companions.” Both photographers portrayed these lifelike surrogates as desired, fetishized, and idealized beings, “living” as such with their flesh and blood mothers and partners, and sometimes with their immediate families as well. “Surrogati. Un amore ideale” will be on view through July 22 at Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Piazza del Duomo, 20123. photographs by Mattia Balsamini

An Exclusive Sneak-Peek At the New Fondazione Prada in Milan

For the last two decades, the Fondazione Prada has held numerous ground-breaking exhibitions, but without a permanent place to call home. An avid collector and matriarch of the Prada and Miu Miu brands, Miuccia Prada has been exhibiting artists like Dan Flavin and Anish Kapoor in a ramshackle assortment of shifting industrial buildings in Milan, Venice and elsewhere in the world. Yet, tomorrow will see the opening of a permanent campus in Milan – designed Rem Koolhaas, the new home of the Fondazione Prada will occupy more than 200,000 square-feet of a century-old distillery in Milan, which has been completely transformed by the Dutch architect and his firm OMA. Indeed, there is a lot to explore at the new foundation – including inaugural exhibitions, like Serial Classic, which plays with classic Roman sculpture, you can also view a new Roman Polanski film in the newly added theater, or you can visit the Haunted House – a permanent installation of late the Louise Bourgeois’ sculptural work. After exploring the expansive space, you can stop and have a cocktail at Bar Luce, which has been designed by the director Wes Anderson, and is inspired by the Milanese cafés of the 1970s. Autre was lucky enough to gather a sneak-peek of the space before it’s official opening – browse through photos to see the exhibitions, the architecture and the perfectly kitschy café. photographs by Juanco Viso for Autre Magazine.