The international group exhibition «Dear Machine, paint for me», that trace a broad spectrum of algorithmic art.
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Kate Vass Galerie & elementum.art opens the group exhibition "Liebe Maschine, male mir”. Curated by Georg Bak and Kate Vass, the exhibition showcases new artworks by Frieder Nake, Hein Gravenhorst, Alexander Mordvintsev, Manfred P. Kage, Herbert W. Franke, Ganbrood, and Espen Kluge, that trace a broad spectrum of algorithmic art.
Creating art has always required technical aids, be it hammer and chisel, paint and brush or, in the technological age, algorithms, graphics programs and artificial intelligence. Central perspective was invented during the Renaissance, and Albrecht Dürer drew the perspective of the landscape using the so-called Dürer disc (a glass panel device). We live in an exo- evolution - to put it in the words of Peter Weibel - in which tools expand our physical and mental abilities. Martin Kippenberger even went so far as to hire professional poster painters to paint pictures for him in his series of works “Lieber Maler, male mir” (Dear Painter, Paint for me). This is how you can roughly imagine the "pas de deux" between the artist-programmer and the computer. The artist sets the stage by programming an algorithm, while the machine delivers the output. Controlled coincidence can play a significant role, and unforeseen disruptive factors can occur at times. Claude Shannon's communication theory defines these as "noises" which would eventually become an artistic medium called "glitches". In the final act, however, the artist usually decides whether he considers a picture good enough or rejects it. It is also possible to leave a generative work of art as the machine accidentally completed it. Then it is up to the viewer to assign a higher aesthetic value to one or the other piece of art. Sometimes it is purely arithmetical qualities, such as the rarity of a feature, that determine the value.
Clip from Frieder Nake’s "Hommage à Gerhard Richter" Genesis kinetic NFT drop created in 2022.
Based on the theories of Max Bense and Abraham Moles, the first generative works of art were created in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the founding fathers of computer art is Frieder Nake (a former student of Max Bense), who designed his first programmed plotter drawings at the Technical University of Stuttgart in 1963 and visualized them on the "Graphomat'' (ZUSE Z64) drawing machine. Nake dedicates his Genesis NFT “Hommage à Gerhard Richter”' to the painter of the century, Gerhard Richter, in his most recent work of art. One of his best-known works is the "Hommage à Paul Klee", which was created in 1965 and paid tribute to the Bauhaus artist by the principle of chance. "Chance is better than me," Gerhard Richter was once quoted when he made colour charts based on algorithms. In Frieder Nake’s hommage, an algorithm continuously generates Richter's striped images in endless variations.
Clip from Hein Gravenhorst’s new kinetic work, translation-0004-1.5, created in 2022.
With similar virtuosity, Frieder Nake's contemporary Hein Gravenhorst creates psychedelic digital transformations. Along with Gottfried Jäger, Pierre Cordier and Kilian Breier, Hein Gravenhorst is one of the co-founders of generative photography and, in the 1960s, developed photomechanical transformations that were created through countless exposures in the darkroom. His most recent works have transformed these patterns, reminiscent of mandalas or medieval rose windows, into hypnotic computer animations.
Clip from Alexander Mordvintsev’s new kinetic work, titled “Autumn Red”, 2022.
One of the recent pioneers of digital art is Alexander Mordvintsev, who conducts scientific research at Google on visualizing deep neural networks. The artist became well known for his invention of the Deep Dream algorithm, a special form of artificial intelligence that he launched in the summer of 2015.
In the "Liebe Maschine, male mir" group exhibition, Alexander Mordvintsev will present a new body of work from his latest series titled "Autumn Life". The visuals are created by a cellular automata based artificial life simulation and is inspired by the autumn forest and its delicate inhabitants.
Digital transformations over the last decades led artists like Ganbrood, a photographer and former computer graphic, to experiment with new tools, such as AI. Instead of using this method to generate variations on existing pictures, Ganbrood uses these neural networks (GANs) as a silicon muse to evoke and stimulate his expressive mind while at the same time interrogating the very essence of creativity: Could it be possible that a quality that was always considered as eminently human, is easily imitated or even reproduced by an algorithm? And when that is the case, are our fantasies and imagination may be controlled by mathematic expressions more than we would consider?
Like every artist is expanding on the work of their most revered predecessors, In 'S O M N I V M', Ganbrood uses visual themes that have always inspired him since youth: mythology and fairytales, theatre and film, painting and photography, videogames and comics. Drawing parallels in timeless variations of visual narrative by seeking their mathematical interfaces in latent space. Where a classicly trained artist like a painter or a sculptor would dig these shapes and symbols from memory, Artificial Intelligence is providing the present-day artist with the tools to draw references from synthetic storage, where the craftsmanship of brush and chisel are shifted to recognition and curation of artificial outputs.
Artificiality has always been a decisive element in Ganbrood's past work, whether using special effects and 3D animation for film or photographing actual events in a serene way that almost looked staged.
Always fascinated by illusions and trickery, Ganbroods ‘oeuvre’ is a voyage of exploration into pseudo-figurative and mind-altering effects like pareidolia, apophenia and synchronicity. This exploration takes an almost literal shape in "In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me" and "This Island's Mine", where sci-fi elements of glorious space adventures meet Renaissancistic scenes. Set in a cinematic universe, the viewer can almost define the actors and decor of these who, after close inspection, turn out to be little more than abstract shapes.
Tragoidia and Les Filles du Roy are like stages. The elements of contradictory mediums like fresco paintings and photography or 3D are battling for the spectator's conclusion of how to interpret what is perceived.
Opens on 27th October at 6 PM in Zurich, The Circle 18
Program:
6 PM - Apero
7 PM - #IRL Art Talk with artists & curators
9 PM - end of the Vernissage
For RSRV email: info@katevassgalerie.com