Exploring one of the most pressing issues of our time—the impact of artificial intelligence—REDCAT’s latest exhibition and performance series, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, is on view now through Feb. 23, 2025.
The exhibition and performance series is part of PST ART: Art and Science Collide, a landmark event presented by Getty that includes more than 70 exhibitions and programs at art institutions across Southern California. This year’s theme explores the relationship between art and science.
Borrowing its title from the 1967 poem by Richard Brautigan, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace proposes new directions for artificial intelligence rooted in BIPOC, feminist, non-Western, and nonbinary systems of thought. It asks how these diverse perspectives can reclaim AI’s potential and use it as a tool for liberation.
Curated by REDCAT Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs Daniela Lieja Quintanar, the exhibition features works by artists Nora Al-Badri, Minne Atairu, Stephanie Dinkins, Mashinka Firunts Hakopian, Interspecifics, Kite (Music BFA 14), Charmaine Poh, Sarah Rosalena, and Kira Xonorika.
As part of the performance program, curated Katy Dammers, Quintanar, and Edgar Miramontes, CalArts alum Kite (Dr. Suzanne Kite) will perform Wičháȟpi Wóihaŋbleya (Dreamlike Star), a piece that uses custom technology to translate her body movements into experimental sound and video. The performance integrates Lakȟóta visual language, drawn from the dreams of women and two-spirit community members, using Kite’s body as a direct interface with machine learning software that has been encoded with a Lakȟóta data set.
The schedule for the performance series is as follows:
Monday, Sept. 16
Screening: AI: African Intelligence by Manthia DiawaraThursday, Sept. 26-Saturday, Sept. 28
Performance: The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes by Back to Back TheatreSaturday, Nov. 2
Performance: The Body is the Interface featuring Kite and InterspecificsSaturday, Dec. 7
Performance: Live Night: Cruising Bodies, Spirits, and Machines with rafa esparza, MUXX, among others
*REDCAT and CAP UCLA co-present the program at the historic 1,600-seat United Theater on Broadway in downtown LA.
Friday, Jan. 24–Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025
Performance: Prometheus Firebringer by Annie Dorsen
