Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA 2025)

PresentationLiteratureScienceArtificial IntelligenceTransdiciplinary
Written By Joshua Sariñana

Photo by, David Joaquin Arellano

How hidden AI systems shape representation and how art-science practices can make them visible.

At SLSA 2025, Joshua Sariñana, PhD, presented Utilizing Large Language Models and Art to Represent Cognitive Networks, expanding his work at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), representation, and multimodal art.

The talk examined how large language models (LLMs) operate as hidden representational systems that shape culture and cognition, often reinforcing bias and inequality. Through Joshua’s projects, such as The Poetry of Science and Mental Mapping: The Art of Exploring Connections, Sariñana demonstrated how pairing AI analysis with poetry, photography, and neuroscience can externalize these hidden processes, making them visible and open to critique.

He argued that interdisciplinary art-science practices are essential to reframing representation as plurality—resisting the flattening effects of machine-mediated media while revealing how our cognitive and cultural networks co-evolve.

Joshua Sariñana

Joshua Sariñana, PhD, obtained his degrees in neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles, and completed his doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Sariñana’s multi-disciplinary art projects bridge art, science, and media. He has received several grants for his art projects, exhibited his work nationally and internationally, and has received numerous awards for his photographic work.

He combines his science communications background with his neuroscience and art practice. Sariñana has provided his expertise to WIRED Magazine, MIT Technology Review, MIT News, and as an invited speaker for the Neurohumanities series at Trinity College in Dublin.

http://joshuasarinana.com/
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Carnegie Mellon University — The Arts in Society Conference (2025)