"Artificial Intelligence: Propositions from the Arts + Humanities" is a series of lectures by artists and scholars whose work foregrounds the ethical obligations arising from the simulation of human intelligence and increased surveillance. These events engage the Society of Fellows 2025-26 annual theme, AI: Creativity + Intelligence + Automation. 

LECTURE | Lauren Tilton, "Distant Viewing: Digital Image in the Age of AI"

March 5, 2026, 3:30-5 p.m. (Denney Hall 311)
Tilton is the E. Claiborne Robins Professor of Liberal Arts and Digital Humanities at the University of Richmond. This talk will introduce the concept of distant viewing, engage with the shifts brought about with generative AI, and then turn to how AI facilitates scholarship in areas such as art history and media studie changing nature of intellectual production with AI. Moderator: Leigh Bonds, Digital Humanities Librarian (Ohio State)

WORKSHOP | Lauren Tilton, "Distant Viewing in Action"

March 6, 2026, 3-4:30 p.m. (Pomerene Hall 240)
The workshop will introduce the method of distant viewing for analyzing digital images. It will start by looking at how pixels form images, then turn to how to analyze pixels using computer vision.  A combination of ready-made tools will be used, including the Distant Viewing Explorer and Python programming. No coding experience needed. Introduction: Kris Paulsen, Associate Professor of History of Art (Ohio State)

LECTURE | Tina Tallon, "Vibe Check: Sound and Surveillance in the AI Era"

March 12, 2026, Noon to 1:30 p.m. (Ohio Union-Barbie Tootle Room)
Sound, especially voice, and the vibrations that carry it are linked to electronic surveillance. Today’s dominant AI systems encode a worldview where culture is tractable as text, and the so-called “vibe” becomes a glossy proxy for the materiality of creative practice. This talk traces how the ‘vibe check’ has been operationalized tech companies and governments and how the words we use to describe cultural production are treated as data from which intentions, emotions, risk and deviance can be inferred. Moderator: Kris Paulsen, Associate Professor of History of Art (Ohio State)

LECTURE | Lauren Lee McCarthy, "Becoming Auto"

April 2, 2026, 4-5:30 p.m. (WOSU Ross Community Studio)
McCarthy is an artist and professor at UCLA Design Media Arts who examines social relationships in the midst of automation, surveillance and algorithmic living. She critiques technological and social systems and explores reciprocal risk taking and vulnerability. Introduction: Chris Coleman, Professor of Art and Director of ACCAD (Ohio State)  Moderator: Katherine Behar, Professor of New Media Arts (Baruch College)

DIGITAL DIALOGUE | Vital Intelligences: Feminist Methodologies for AI

April 15, 2026, 3:30-5 p.m. (Zoom)
This Digital Dialogue is between feminist STS scholars Neda Atanasoski (Professor and Chair of the Harriet Tubman Department of WGSS, University of Maryland) and Jennifer Rhee (Associate Professor of English and founder and co-director of the AI Futures Lab, Virginia Commonwealth University). Atanasoski and Rhee will address feminist approaches to intelligence as embodied, unruly, and relational, while staying attentive to the material conditions that make contemporary AI possible. Moderator: Kris Paulsen, Associate Professor of History of Art (Ohio State)