An array of casual nudity, godlike figures arrayed in silks stare at their phones, unselfconscious in their skin. The viewer lifts their phone and through the lens the image distorts, changes. It becomes more, somehow, but on second glance at the wall beyond it is unchanged. It remains as it was. The device takes the original image and it distorts, changing into a painterly aspect, more fluid somehow, colors appear from nowhere. The images turn to stained glass, to paint, to mosaic, they remain unmistakably the same image, but change to become somehow other inside the screen. Untouched by human hands.
The alterations that animate across the surface of the original image, however, superimposed over the original work so that it is indistinguishable, are also untouched by human hand. They coruscate over and through the figure, but are, too, the creation of a machine. A computer has studied these works and constructed its own interpretation. It has taken the inspiration behind the piece together with the work itself and used with own deep neural network to create an idea of the work. This idea, dreamed up by a computer, is part of the feel of otherworldliness within these works. Accessed by the phones they speak to our reliance on technology as well as the inherent power of holding the sum total of human knowledge at our fingertips. It makes us wonder as to the future of computer intelligence and the singularity event that will make computers smarter at an exponential rate.
Technology
Recursion is a celebration of technology. Every part of this project is machinic with the human hand of the artist obscured. From the digital figures, to the 3D rendering, to the neural networks based animated interpretation, to the mobile Augmented Reality application that pulls it all together. This project uses machine learning, programming, physics based render technologies and Augmented Reality to look at the world a different way. An entirely fabricated world of digital sprites yearning to be human, these works explore the nature of gender, of the next evolution of humanity, of Artificial Intelligence. Where gender binaries no longer matter and nothing counts beyond the mind and thought and creativity.
My process involves a fusion of 3D modeling, Style Transfer, laser cutting, and Unity, crafting interactive works that dynamically shift and change into neural network abstractions. A recursive experience unfolds as each 3D-rendered piece transforms into an abstraction, resonates with its laser-cut partner, only to resolve back into the render once more.
Images
Videos
Awards
2017 Fiona Meyer award – The University of Melbourne school of the VCA and MCM
2018 Midsumma Australia Post Art Award – Melbourne
Installation Photographs
I have shown these works at the VCA Master’s graduation show, Beyond the Binary at Testing Grounds for Melbourne Fringe Festival and Gasworks Art Park for Midsumma Festival.
