Stephanie Dinkins: Okra Continuum
How might we shape and reshape social relationships and obligations using blockchain technologies?
I believe in art as a getaway to foster dialogues, ideas and new concepts to question the way we interact with the world. An escape to create community, impact societies and, perhaps even, contribute to change.
Stephanie Dinkins is a transmedia artist creating experiences that spark dialog about race, gender, aging, and our future histories. Her work in AI and other mediums uses emerging technologies and social collaboration to work toward technological ecosystems based on care and social equity.
We talked to Stephanie about adopting blockchain and AI technologies to make something new, meaningful, and supportive, pondering ideas of trust and collective action and Okra Continuum, her latest work for Chain Reaction at Feral File: a collective exhibition of inventive experimental gestures that set into motion a course of action. Curated by Christiane Paul, curator of digital art at the Whitney Museum.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
We The Cool: What led you to the world of art and later NFTs?
Stephanie Dinkins: From the creativity my grandmother showed in her home and garden, to the cameras my aunts always had in hand at family events, and from my own photo-taking habit that started in middle school to my current attempts to capture family ethos in a chatbot, art has always been a part of my life.
Over time, art became a practice that helps me decipher the lopsided world I was born into and fulfills a desire to find visibilities supporting intrinsic self-conceptions. Art is also a way to make space for community and debunk deep seeded, often ill-informed ideas.
“I've grown to appreciate art as a gateway to conversations with many ways of being, ideas, and disciplines that can make complex concepts accessible to many and impact societies.”
I recently started making NFTs. I often make into knowing. I participate in NFT projects to learn more about how NFTs are minted and how they can function beyond consumption. Through Okra Continuum, I ponder ideas of trust and collective action. How far can the conditions of an agreement be stretched? How might we shape and reshape social relationships and obligations using blockchain technologies? For example, I often think about the possibilities for reparations alongside blockchain technologies. And finally, I hope to embed a broader spectrum of stories deep within technologies that can hold and generate wealth.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
WTC: How has your perception and definition of art evolved since you began your artistic journey?
S: Art has always been a practical process-oriented way of trying to decode and impact the world around me. It is also a way to hold on to and remember people and things lost to time and memory. A way to recall possibilities and ways of being that sometimes feel lost or out of reach. Ideas are most important to me. The core of my practice has wrestled with notions of representation, agency, the perceptions of other, and social equity. These concepts are also central to my existence as a black woman in the USA. The form of my work has evolved over the years, but the core investigations have remained the same.
WTC: What is your personal perspective of AI, particularly in the art world?
S: My perspective on AI is -- AI is -- and it's here to stay. AI is intertwined in so many systems that impact our lives daily. We increasingly rely on and create with the help of AI. That means we must be ready to deal with the change ever-expanding AI ecosystems bring.
People must embrace learning and relearning to keep up and adopt new ways of engaging or collaborating with AI technologies. Each advance in AI requires humans to shift or invent new skills to contend with it. Being adaptive and adopting openness and fluidity around intelligent technologies, in addition to being critical and demanding accountability, seems key. For artists, that means using, testing, breaking, and reimagining new/next intelligent technologies. Artists are good at identifying problems, opportunities, and new possibilities the tech is porting into the future. We will need to adapt our skills to use AI technologies effectively. Artists are great at adaptation. If we don't get stuck in what we think is being lost or taken away by technology or hold on to the rules of the past. If we don’t let the rush to capitalism lead over development, perhaps we can use AI technologies to make something new, meaningful, and supportive.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
WTC: In which way do you think algorithm systems impact our future?
S: It's hard to imagine how algorithmic systems do not impact our future. Systems that use algorithms are pervasive. New systems with far-reaching implications impact how we conduct daily business, communicate, treat medical issues, and so on. They are coming down the pipe quickly and regularly. These technologies can potentially change how humans function and relate- exponentially. That means humans in the ecosphere of algorithms need to become even more adaptable. A new mantra of mine is “always be learning”. Another way algorithmic systems impact our future is they are training us as we train them. It's imperative that we work from our better inclinations to create algorithmic systems with care and support, as opposed to fear and punishment, at their core. We, of course, have to guard against opacity, biases, or worse within algorithmic systems. Still, we need broad participation in the training and creating of algorithmic systems that will touch almost everyone at some point.
WTC: We love the way your artwork "Okra Continuum" - exhibited in Feral File - mixes past, present, and future. Tell us more about the fascinating story behind it.
S: Okra Continuum is a black imaginary. I've been thinking about okra as a spaceship that effortlessly traverses time and space and persists as do the peoples it traveled with. I think of okra as being unbound by the trappings of the past and desires to reach from the far-off future. Okra, like AI, is. It seemingly has always been and revels in its knowingness. I use okra as a metaphor for black presence and an ability to claim and reclaim the space time continuum as we need it to be to alter what it comes in contact with and to thrive, even in hostile territories.
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
WTC: What advice would you give young creatives to embark on their path?
Stephanie: Stick with your practice, art is a long game for most.
Be an explorer of the methods, technologies and tools you use rather than a simple consumer. Examine them. Be critical of them. Be fantastical with them, make them do the things that you wish they did rather than simply accepting what they are. Better yet, develop your tools.
“Always be learning.”
Photo: Courtesy of the artist.
WTC: What is next for you? Do you have any upcoming projects in the works?
S: I'm trying to slow my calendar down and reserve time for work on new and longer-term projects. In terms of exhibitions, a few versions of Conversations with Bina48 are in shows in the US and Europe. I will have work in an exhibition at the Ford Foundation in Fall. I have a long-term project through HP commissions. I’m doing research for a project featuring storytelling ( our stories are our algorithms, you know) and emerging technologies that is slated to be shown at San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art sometime in the next three or four years. I'm building out my lab, the Future Histories Studio, at Stony Brook University. The lab encourages hands-on, multidisciplinary exploration of ideas through art technology and critical thought. I'm also working on a collaborative blockchain project with the Arts Research Integration program at the Spencer Museum of Art. Joey Orr, Mellon Curator for Research at the museum, invited myself and Simon Denn collaborate with work with Perry Alexander, AT&T Foundation Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Science and Di rector of the Institute for Information Sciences at the University of Kansas. and his students. Lastly this summer I will be hosting a residency at Montovo Arts Center for artists of color who are thinking in and around Ai and other emerging technologies.