Verse Talks

Discussing the latest news in digital art with Leyla Fakhr and Jamie Gourlay.

Sasha Stiles: poetry in the age of AI

October 10, 2025

00:42 - Welcome Sasha Stiles

04:55 - The foundations for an endless curiosity

09:50 - Connecting with Kalmyk art forms

13:40 - From academia to the arts

16:20 - New York, cultural absorption and parallel careers

19:05 - Living through pivotal technological shifts

21:52 - An ongoing cultural relationship with technology

23:20 - Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence and Attention Is All You Need

26:39 - The role of the writer and language in the wake of AI

28:29 - Talk to Transformer, early tooling and digital exploration

32:58 - Working with an AI co-author

33:40 - A constantly evolving data set

35:30 - Defining the art and shaping the system

38:26 - Loss of nuance online and the impact of live performance

41:40 - Identifying as an artist and blockchain as a multi-media printing press

48:20 - 2020 and people connecting online

52:00 - The importance of community and social media

54:38 - The role of a gallery in an artist's career

58:45 - The stresses of a financialized practice

01:00:45 - theVERSEverse and the growth of an experimental collective

01:06:56 - A Living Poem at MoMa

01:11:23 - Situating AI-powered verse in the tradition of text-based art

01:16:19 - Upcoming writing, work and special events at MoMa