The Intersect: Art in Tech and Tech in Art - Imagination to Reality: When Art Leads, Technology Follows

Greetings from Juergen

Hi all,

This week's collection explores how imagination shapes reality across creative fields. From science fiction writers who planted the seeds for actual space exploration to orchestral musicians fighting for fair compensation in the streaming era, I'm examining how art and technology continue to push and pull on each other.

I've also included some thought-provoking pieces about AI's complicated relationship with art—from the controversy over AI-generated promotional materials at Oakland First Fridays to digital artists whose handcrafted work is now dismissed as machine-made. Plus, there's a fascinating look at the staged perfection of travel photography and Google's attempt to make technology feel more human through interactive light installations.

Listen to "The Intersect: Art in Tech and Tech in Art" podcast for a conversational exploration of these stories—subscribe to hear these thought-provoking topics brought to life in audio format.

Art Narratives

Why Science Fiction May Be the Root of Space Exploration

The piece from Hackernoon tracks how science fiction has shaped space exploration, shining a light on the influence of writers like Verne, Clarke, Heinlein, and Asimov. From A Trip to the Moon to Starship Troopers, it’s clear these stories did more than entertain—they seeded our expectations of space itself.

What struck me reading this is how often artists and writers imagine futures that scientists eventually build toward. It's not limited to outer space. Think Fantastic Voyage and microscopic travel, or all the underwater cities dreamt up in the 20th century. These visions weren’t about spectacle—they were about possibility, progress, and often, survival.

“What’s important to take away, though, is that humans have always dreamed of traveling through the stars.” (Hackernoon)

So, were we ever chasing the stars—or just catching up to artists who were already there?

Technology in Music

Orchestral Players Call on UK Culture Minister to Ensure All Musicians Earn When Their Music Is Streamed

Hundreds of orchestral musicians across more than 20 UK ensembles have signed an open letter to culture minister Chris Bryant, calling for fair revenue sharing from music streaming. As reported by CMU, the Musicians’ Union is pushing to extend equitable remuneration (ER) to all session and non-featured players, who currently receive nothing from streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music unless they’ve negotiated it.

This isn’t just a streaming issue—it’s about how copyright law defines who gets paid. In the UK, if you're not a "featured artist", you're basically invisible to the system that distributes revenue. That’s a structural choice. It reflects how the law favors a narrow definition of creative contribution, and it's one that disproportionately affects orchestral and session musicians.

“If musicians create an asset that someone can profit from, then surely we should be properly and fairly remunerated for that in every case,” the open letter states.

Why do we keep accepting a royalty structure that treats some musicians like ghosts?

AI in Visual Arts

AI Art Flyer Brings Controversy to Oakland First Fridays

Organizers of Oakland First Fridays are facing backlash after using AI to create a promotional flyer, as reported by KQED. Their explanation? Budget constraints. They said it wasn’t entirely AI-generated and that they made “significant edits,” but that hasn’t stopped the criticism—especially from artists who feel sidelined by automation.

I help run a First Fridays event too, with a shoestring budget and big ambitions. We don’t use AI for promotion, not because we’re purists, but because we believe human-made art sets the tone. But I also get it. Non-profits are often balancing creativity with survival. I draw a line between using AI for marketing and positioning it as actual creative output.

“What’s better: having your event not get noticed, adding a lot of lead time to being able to market it, but hiring graphic designers who many people might argue are not true artists either, versus using modern marketing techniques that allow us to do this at scale?”

Is the outrage about AI—or about artists feeling like they’re being left out of the conversation altogether?

Photography

25 Instagram vs. Reality Photos That Paint a More Authentic Picture

DeMilked’s “25 Instagram Vs. Reality Photos That Paint A More Authentic Picture” pulls back the curtain on the curated calm of influencer travel posts. Using behind-the-scenes comparisons, it spotlights the crowded chaos lurking just outside the frame. The photos—mostly pulled from TikTok creators like @roemer_productions—reveal the visual gymnastics it takes to manufacture serenity in over-touristed spots.

I’ve definitely been there. Trying to photograph a peaceful plaza while elbowing past twenty selfie sticks. I get the impulse. We all want to feel like we’re discovering something untouched. But the truth is, there’s often a hundred people behind the person in the photo, all trying to do the same thing.

When I was still a product photographer in New York City, we created these immaculate tabletop scenes. But five steps back? Total chaos—cables, lights, reflector boards everywhere. Photography has always been a kind of lie like that, and we’ve always played along.

Are these “perfect” photos really aspirational—or just carefully staged nostalgia for a place that never was?

Artificial Intelligence and Creativity

Jeu De Paume Puts on Wide-Ranging Survey of Work Created by Artists Working With Artificial Intelligence

The Art Newspaper’s recent piece on Le Monde Selon L’IA, now showing at Jeu de Paume in Paris, brings overdue attention to a broader view of AI in art. Unlike shows that spotlight a single figure—think Refik Anadol or Herndon/Dryhurst—this one gathers over 30 artists probing AI’s many angles: generative, analytical, conversational, surveillance-focused, and even environmentally entangled.

What I find compelling is how this moves beyond idolizing the lone tech-wizard-artist. Instead, it maps a collective field, showing how AI becomes a medium, not just a tool. That shift—from seeing AI as some mysterious plug-in to something you shape and question—is what makes this feel necessary. Artists like Trevor Paglen and Hito Steyerl aren’t just using AI, they’re interrogating it.

“It is often through artistic works that we become more conscious of the impacts and implications of AI,” says curator Antonio Somaini. That’s the kind of framing we need more of.

Are we finally seeing AI art treated less like magic and more like method?

Definitely Not AI

Digital Artist Shares What It’s Like to Have His Work “Ruined by AI”

UK-based artist Karl Roberts opens up in My Modern Met about the frustration of having his hand-crafted, surrealist digital photography dismissed as AI-generated. Roberts, who’s spent 16 years building his visual language through photography, Photoshop, and painstaking manual editing, says that the rise of AI image generators has left him feeling erased.

I get it. Before AI tools started spitting out surreal dreamscapes by typing a few prompts, there were artists blending photography, collage, and manual compositing to create emotionally rich and technically demanding work. If I had poured years into a process—finding props, shooting in real locations, manually stitching and retouching for weeks—only to be told it must be AI? I’d be pissed too.

“Everything you see in my pictures is a real photograph... knowing that process can now be trivialized with AI is really heartbreaking, to be honest.”

What signals can we create—or reclaim—to preserve the value of human craft in digital art?

Interactive Art

Google’s New Artwork Is an Ode to Our Complicated Relationship With Technology

At this year’s Salone del Mobile in Milan, Google’s installation Making the Invisible Visible—covered by Mark Wilson for Fast Company—turns beams of laser light into a tactile art experience. Designed with artist Lachlan Turczan, it invites visitors to interact with light as if it were fabric, reacting to touch like harp strings. Google connects this sensory work to its product philosophy: ambient tech that disappears until needed, like the Nest thermostat or Pixel Buds.

What I find interesting here isn’t the tech, but Google’s attempt to frame it as emotional and human. That’s a big ask. Art can carry abstraction—we expect that. But when a trillion-dollar company does it, the line between authenticity and branding gets murky.

“We have to come to that place where we’re not competing [with technology], but we are interacting together, moving modern life forward,” says Ivy Ross, Google's head of device design.

Can technology be quiet, soft, and generous—or is that just how we market noise today?

The Last Word

Thanks for spending time with these stories. Each week, I try to find pieces that challenge how we think about the relationship between creativity and technology. Your thoughts on these topics matter to me—they help shape future issues and expand the conversation beyond what I can see on my own. Feel free to reply with your perspective or questions about anything that resonated with you.

Until next week, Juergen