Abstract
As new technologies enter everyday life, designs have to address new interactions between ethics and aesthetics as new possibilities also come with new consequences. A current example concerns Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the issues of bias that seem to come with its predictive and generative capacities. To explore bias further, we start with the question that if bias is present (and perhaps cannot be completely eliminated), what could it be like to instead work with its expressions? And could exploring an ‘aesthetics of bias’ allow us to come closer to where bias comes from in the first place, in how people relate to others? By practice-based research, this paper investigates how bias can be creatively expressed in technology design. We describe the interactive installation, “Poetic Layers”, consisting of a window, a sugar jar, a coffee pot, and a table, trained and acted by AI and Machine Learning (ML). Through these design experiments, we introduce four interactions to mirror and amplify biases in human relationships - dominance, exclusion, hostility, and fractured balance
Keywords
THE AESTHETICS OF BIAS; POETIC APPROACH; BIAS TECHNOLOGY
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.18
Citation
Lee, Y.S.,and Redstöm, J.(2025) Poetic layers: Exploring the aesthetics of bias, in Brandt, E., Markussen, T., Berglund, E., Julier, G., Linde, P. (eds.), Nordes 2025: Relational Design, 6-8 August, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.18
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Poetic layers: Exploring the aesthetics of bias
As new technologies enter everyday life, designs have to address new interactions between ethics and aesthetics as new possibilities also come with new consequences. A current example concerns Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the issues of bias that seem to come with its predictive and generative capacities. To explore bias further, we start with the question that if bias is present (and perhaps cannot be completely eliminated), what could it be like to instead work with its expressions? And could exploring an ‘aesthetics of bias’ allow us to come closer to where bias comes from in the first place, in how people relate to others? By practice-based research, this paper investigates how bias can be creatively expressed in technology design. We describe the interactive installation, “Poetic Layers”, consisting of a window, a sugar jar, a coffee pot, and a table, trained and acted by AI and Machine Learning (ML). Through these design experiments, we introduce four interactions to mirror and amplify biases in human relationships - dominance, exclusion, hostility, and fractured balance