• SKYGGE explained that this kind of music is welcomed in Saudi more than his home country as he said that the Saudi culture is more open to new experiences

RAHAF JAMBI

RIYADH: During November Digital, the art gallery L’art pur has created a conference entitled “How do Art and artificial intelligence work together?”.

The French ambassador, Ludovic Pouille, opened the conference by explaining the correlation between art and artificial intelligence.

He said that “The Institut français in Paris founded November digital in the year 2017. This month is dedicated to highlighting the links between these two worlds,” Pouille said.

The gallery has collaborated with the French embassy and Alliance Française in Saudi Arabia to create a special conference with the live performance of the composer SKYGGE to revive the night.

The conference also hosted the two artificial intelligence artists Daniah Al Saleh and Artur Weber who also performed a piece of their AI artwork.

Because SKYGGE is known to use artificial intelligence in his music, the concert was a mix of Artificial intelligence, music, and colourful lights.

SKYGGE explained that this kind of music is welcomed in Saudi more than his home country as he said that the Saudi culture is more open to new experiences.

“Saudi culture is very cool and interesting. I think it depends on the culture, like in France they get scared from my work but here they are interested,” he said.

Dania Saleh, AI artist, performed a nine-minute silent movie called “fadeaway”, and it was data sets that had been collected from the Egyptian black and white movies.

She said that she was a traditional painter then she was exposed to AI art.

“I studied computational arts, the combination between digital technology and art, I had no idea what it was, but I found it very interesting,” Al Saleh added.

Lastly, Weber showed his movie entitled “can you be real with me” that he said was inspired by his own dreams.

The conceptual movie contained a black silhouette of a woman trying to catch a shadow of herself in a way that touches the viewer’s emotions with repeated phrases.

He said that he was inspired by Siri to become an AI artist.

“I decided to get into the AI world when I discovered that there are some programs that you can feed and train to get used to you just like Siri,” Weber explained.

The visitors of the gallery had an interactive experience with art. They got to explore virtual reality art by using the VR glasses and enjoyed interactive comic illustrators.