Alaa is an artist (painter, filmmaker, and photographer) and scientist (data scientist and artificial intelligence expert with a Ph.D. in Complex Systems) who has been teaching machines to make art for the past decade. Alaa believes that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and tries to express this through his art. Through this talk, Alaa raises a thought-provoking idea to dare people to connect through our passion and to use technology in that favor. Alaa believes that our passion is the best tool to create meaningfully connections and technology should be only used to support human interaction and not to create divides. A motto that is very present in his work is expressed by the African UBUNTU, meaning “I am therefore we are”. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
ALAgrApHY (a.k.a. Al or Alaa Abi Haidar) is a Paris-based artist (painter, filmmaker and photographer) and scientist (data scientist and artificial intelligence expert with a PhD in Complex Systems) who has been teaching machines to make art for the past decade. ALAgrApHY uses algorithms to generate mosaics composed of thousands of unique faces (of non-existing people) of all ages and diversity, inspired by his non-profit project of 1001faces.org. He has exhibited at the Grand Palais in 2018 and 2019 and his AI-generated artwork "D'ame(s) Souriante(s)" has received the digital art award at the Salon d'Automne. ALAgrApHY is an “artivist” who believes that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and tries to express this through his art. A motto that is very present in his work is expressed by the African UBUNTU, meaning “I am therefore we are”. ALAgrApHY has engaged in several non-profit projects such as 1001 faces, Pass a Smile, and currently in exhibition "the Collective Brain X", ALAgrApHY strongly believes that we are all stardust and tries to express it in his episodic feature documentary: "The Art and Science of Traveling". ALAgrApHY did his PhD at Indiana University and PostDoc at the University of Pierre and Marie Curie. Currently, he is an artist/scientist-in-residency at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Lisbon, Portugal. For more information: www.alagraphy.com This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx