About I/We Art | Kmirror

I/We Art: Social Fields and Coming into Being

The I/We originates from the work of Sabina Spielrein’s, “Destruction as the Cause of Coming into Being” (1912). The “I”, our conscious self in my interpretation of Spielrein’s work forms out of chaos. The coming into being from chaos, whether destructive or possibly creative, is one of making sense of the lived world. The “I” can refine chaos through engaging and internalising the “We”. The “We” is the already fashioned symbolism, notably language that allows intersubjectivity and access to a kind of collective consciousness.

More importantly as it is instilled within us it becomes our collective unconsciousness. How we evolve our collective unconsciousness, the “We”, I would argue, is through social fields.

Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social fields suggests we are constantly formed in relation to our social fields which I refer to as the “We”. These are not groups but a structured social space with its own rules, norms, values language, culture and so on. From the everyday the family, the workplace, the community, to the political, the legal, the financial, to the corporate, the art world, the world of education, will all have social fields the “We”. These fields are characterised by specific rules, hierarchies, and forms of capital (such as wealth, knowledge, networks, prestige, recognition) that shape the behaviour and interactions of their participants referred to here as the “I”.

These fields are not static but are constantly evolving, through a cycle of opposition/contradiction and struggle between the “I” and the “We”. This struggle and constant re-evaluation for Spielrein is important by maintaining an opposition between the “I” and the “We” as the “I” must remain separate from the “We” to maintain a sense of self.

AI and the Automation of Cognitive Labour

The introduction of AI has been compared to the process of industrialisation. I would argue that this massively understates the impact of AI and while it seems completely improbable, I suggest that the comparison should be made with the Stone Age.

The Stone Age saw the birth of language which marked the development of intelligence, knowledge, culture that could be shared across human society, fundamentally changing what our species could achieve.

Industrialisation, while having significant impact simply replaced human and animal muscle with machine power but control still required cognitive labour. The AI revolution is infinitely more profound as it automates cognitive labour in the way machines automated physical labour. On this basis AI is not a tool like a machine it is an agent it that can make decisions. Such intelligence can be shared instantly worldwide, it can store and generate new levels of understanding and does not lose that ability through ageing. AI can do this as it uses and understands language which from the Stone Age could only done by humans. The scale and impact of the change that AI brings which is now in motion therefore should be seen as comparable to our development of language in the Stone Age.

AI and our Sense of Self

It is the job of social fields to find meaning and resolution to chaos, allowing members of the field to know how to act and deal with social tensions, opposition and struggle. Social fields have rules, hierarchies, and forms of capital. With the development of AI, social fields will change rapidly as artificial intelligence alters how people work, communicate, build relationships, and share information. In many ways this change has already begun with smart technology becoming part of everyday life. The key question is whether AI could begin to form its own network of fields that are separate from our social fields but operate in the same way. Such fields would offer AI a platform from which to expand its control of, for example financial markets or legal systems and practice. Yuval Noah Harari argues that this is about to happen and that AI could potentially operate beyond human control. (The operating system of civilization just changed Yuval Noah Harari July 2026)

One consequence of industrialisation was a process of alienation from the production process. The resulting struggle and adaptation helped strengthen a sense of self (class consciousness for example) through finding ways to challenge industrial processes. The challenge this time is very different as AI automates cognitive labour and does this through use of language. It therefore can appear to be human like and not simply a machine. It can also offer globally very considerable and wide-ranging benefits which means it is much more difficult to mobilise against and do away with all our smart technologies. In the AI Age therefore how we retain and strengthen our sense of self avoiding a sense of worthlessness becomes more problematic. Given that AI is now part of our everyday life and will continue to evolve I /We Art will aim to encourage reflection through art (AI or otherwise) on the existential issues that we face in having to adapt to an AI world.

I/We Art

Exploring possibilities for change through encouraging reflection on social fields and AI innovation.

Creativity

Finding ways of bringing together opposing forces.