Critical Conversations: Curry J. Hackett

A Critical Conversations Event

What Does a “cultural use case” for generative artificial intelligence look like, particularly for artists and designers? Perhaps more importantly, what is the role of Blackness in shaping imaginative approaches to AI tools?

This talk addresses these questions by putting Curry J. Hackett’s recent investigations with AI in context with his earlier work in public art, architecture education, and archival practice. The texture of his AI media for example—which conjures uncanny scenes rooted in the aesthetics of the American South—can be traced to his lifelong passions for collage, wild plants, quilting, and storytelling. As the internet as we know it faces an uncertain fate, Hackett shares thoughts on how his work might offer new perspectives on the future of Black culture in the historical record.

Curry J. Hackett is a transdisciplinary designer, public artist, and educator. His art and research practice, Wayside, looks to under-recognized cultural narratives inspire emergent forms of media, building, and art. Noteworthy projects include his “So That You All Won’t Forget” exhibit at the “Making Home” Smithsonian Design Triennial at the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York, Ugly Beauties (2024) mural in downtown Brooklyn; HOLD (2024), a sculpture and soundscape installation at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Recently, Curry has garnered acclaim for his recent experiments with artificial intelligence, in which he braids Black aesthetics, ethnobotany, and tropes of Southern culture to imagine surreal scenes of Black joy and abundance. This work has been exhibited in Washington, DC and Knoxville, TN, and has been featured in Bloomberg and Architect Magazine, and supported by the Graham Foundation, Washington Project of the Arts, and the Journal of Architectural Education.

Currently, Curry is Distinguished Lecturer and Professor of Practice at City College of New York Spitzer School of Architecture, as part of its Place, Memory, and Culture Incubator program.