inference_commons

inference_commons, David Lazar

Solarpunk et art critique | Permacomputing

Created by David Lazar, inference_commons is a digital installation that explores the governance issues surrounding artificial intelligence and IT infrastructure.

Computing is now one of the key infrastructures of our societies. It shapes the ways in which we learn, make decisions and organise community life, whilst its operating principles and costs often remain largely invisible.

Drawing inspiration from the council fire – an ancestral place of gathering, knowledge-sharing and deliberation – inference_commons juxtaposes the collective forms of governance of the past with contemporary digital infrastructures. Whereas the fire provided a space for dialogue, listening and shared decision-making, computational systems now operate in a diffuse, omnipresent manner, whilst remaining largely beyond the reach of the communities that depend on them.

Through this installation, David Lazar invites us to consider computing not as an infinite resource, but as a tangible and finite asset that we must care for. The work prompts reflection on the narratives, responsibilities and forms of governance that might accompany the development of artificial intelligence if its infrastructure were more firmly rooted in the common good.

If digital infrastructures belonged to the communities that depend on them, what forms of care and responsibility would emerge? What stories would guide their use? What obligations would accompany their power?

A fire only survives because a community gathers around it. Computing may require, in the same way, such a community.

Visual from the research phase. The final work is subject to change.

This work is presented as part of SOLAR FUTURES, a collaboration supported by Creative Europe between 4 cultural organisations working at the crossroads of art, science and technology: Ohme (BE), Electroni[k] (FR), iii (NL) and LEV Festival (ES), in partnership with Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Creative partner: Territoires Rennes