Domenico Quaranta, “Controcultura – Estrattivismo: andata e ritorno”, in Daniela Cotimbo, Francesco D’Abbraccio e Andrea Facchetti (Eds.), AI & Conflicts. Volume 02, Krisis Publishing, Brescia 2025, ISBN 9788894740158, pp. 222-271.

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it really means, for an artist, to work with Artificial Intelligence. My main point is this: it’s easy for us to speculate about what AI represents for us, the users – whether it’s a mere tool, a powerful medium, a collaborator, a co-author, the true author, a bad joke, a thief, a nightmare, and so on.
But what are we, from the machine’s point of view? I found the best answer to this question in a relatively old (2018) text by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, where they talk about Amazon Echo. They write:

“It is difficult to place the human user of an AI system into a single category: rather, they deserve to be considered as a hybrid case. Just as the Greek chimera was a mythological animal that was part lion, goat, snake and monster, the Echo user is simultaneously a consumer, a resource, a worker, and a product.”

This quote, to me, opens up a vertiginous perspective. Where does agency lie? Who controls what – or what controls whom? Are we free to engage with it as we like, or not?

I’ve tried to explore these questions in a series of texts that will be gradually released in the coming months, touching on authorship, appropriation, kitsch, and tactical behaviors. The first one is now available in Italian in a thoughtfully curated anthology, published by Krisis, featuring essays and artworks by Matteo Pasquinelli, Eryk Salvaggio, Hito Steyerl, Rosemary Lee, Minne Atairu, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Anna Ridler, Zach Blas, Yuk Hui – just to name a few. Enjoy it, if you can.