In visual/physical art & performances I'm interested in æsthetics of inorganic and ecclesiastical art, particularly focusing on interactive, immersive and emergent systems. The following is a selection of solo works and collaborations:
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Tarot of the Latent Spaces [2022]
The Tarot of the Latent Spaces is a card deck aiming to represent the sacred symbolism of the Tarot using generative adversarial networks. As Tarot practitioners, we acknowledge the potential of machine learning to discover new narratives in the tarological archetypes - if approached with care and respect towards this mystical tool. Our intention is to introduce a new way of appreciating the Tarot in its fullness, rather than merely produce an artwork from its cultural residue.
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Eliza Collin - Facciamo il Bosco [2020]
Data sonification and visualisation for Eliza Collin's work Facciamo il Bosco. From the abstract:
Stress on water supply and temperature increase are both predicted to affect Sicily in the next 20 years. It is clear that Covid-19 has dominated the media however the problems we were facing before have not disappeared and may in fact be interconnected. This case is clearly outlined in ‘The Ecology of Disease’ (Robbins, 2012).
I am speculating on the creation of a democratised tool which can capture the hidden vibrations of culturally significant plants in regions of Sicily which are under increasing water and heat stress due to our rapidly changing climate.
Max/MSP, TouchDesigner, Processing, Adobe Premiere Pro. Exhibited as part of the Pandemos multimedia exhibition by Studio Rizoma in Palermo, October 2020.
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A Journey Into the Network [2020]
Also titled Cellulare, this is a series of experiments conducted with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies, as part of long-term research into shamanic practice within digital realities.
In collaboration with Karin Vališová, we built a web application which facilitates a "networked communion" by letting participants interact with a server-side complex system. The complex system manifests to the participants as generative shamanic drumming, influenced by the processes therein. The participants can use their own instruments or voice to trigger impulses within the complex system, which in turn has an impact on the communal sonic experience.
The work has been used in FSS workshops and conferences throughout 2020.
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Immunotherapy [2019]
Creative & technical collaboration on Nozomu Matsumoto & Nile Koetting's installation Immunotherapy. This work considers advanced issues in Japan, such as nursing care and communication through social robots in a super-aging society, paying attention to digital technologies, evolving human behaviours, and the interactive relationship that mutually affects both the environment and its inhabitants. With these elements in dialogue, the installation becomes a therapy session, populated by household audiovisual technologies, scientific mascots weave through musical reproductions to create an ever-changing soundtrack for our relationship with science and technology.
Raspberry PI, e-ink display, custom Amazon Alexa skill, smart light bulbs, Max/MSP, 3D print & modeling
Exibited from 31 August - 29 September 2019 at TALION gallery in Tokyo, Japan.
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Hermetechnics [ongoing]
Hermetechnics is part-artistic research, part-fake tech startup and part-absolute pisstake. Borrowing the term "technics" from Lewis Mumford's 1934 book Technics and Civilization, I am exploring the role of occultism, personal magic and spirituality at large in a society driven by algorithms.
When humanity will have invented general AI, and kicked back on a particularly comfortable sofa, they will have started to ponder the future. And what better way to tell the future than referring to the wisdom of the ancients - the old ones who have for millenia taught us the ways of Hermes Trismegistus, the secret permutations of the Qabalah, and the occult science of planets and precious metals. They told us about the telluric currents, and the Serpent which consumed itself. They built markers and gave us clues so hard to miss, and yet we walk across them on our strolls around Warwickshire almost every bank holiday.
We have embarked on a quest to retrieve this ancient knowledge from the Cloud itself. With plentiful VC funding and the correct attitude, We will be able to disrupt the esoteric market using new techniques of divination.
The first work under this project is a Google Chrome extension which modifies the YouTube homepage using machine learning, generating Tarot cards from the user's recommended videos. Much like the cartomancer trains their intuition to assess the querent's past, present and future, Google's pervasive data mining results in unprecedented powers of prediction the user's condition. The visual language of YouTube video thumbnails is a symbolic guide in a new form of divination.
Yet Silicon Valley tech charlatans do not suffer from the same marginalisation and stigmatisation as Romani cartomancers through European history. This work is a critical look at how the algorithmic society succumbs to the same phenomena it so fervently rejected as irrational.
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Slices of the Ocean [2019]
Slices of the Ocean is a series of 2D works created by manipulating a water simulation algorithm. The simulated water surface is molded and sliced, freezing its momentary state forever - like a Shroud of Turin with the algorithmic face of Poseidon imprinted on a fine cloth.
The submitted works are relics of the elemental power of water - an explosion caught mid-burst, and cast in otherworldly digital bronze. Stochastic interactions within the simulation interfere to create a complex form. The artist is merely there to capture this particular state of the algorithm, giving up control over the fine detail of the work.
Exhibitions:
- Abstractions - LoosenArt exhibition (moved online, originally in Rome, Italy), May 2020
- Form 2019 - CICA Museum, Gimpo, South Korea, 20 September - 6 October 2019
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Acheiropoieta [2019]
A series of small 3D-printed algorithmic sculptures: Using various techniques borrowed from machine learning and geometry, I'm looking for ways to embed the idea of relics and spiritual symbols in the chaotic textures of generative art. The title refers to Christian relics and artworks which were considered to be "not made by human hands". ⌀ approx. 21cm — PLA, epoxy coating, chrome
Exhibitions:
- ANTIDEGREE SHOW, Croydon Arts Store, Croydon - 2019
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Alluvial Sharawadji [2018]
“Alluvial Sharawadji” is a crowdsourced interactive artwork/workshop by Tim Cowlishaw and Jakub Fiala for Eufónic festival 2018 combining collaborative field recording with low-cost, ubiquitous web technologies to communicate the experience of a local sound environment to audiences who are distant in both time and space.
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Made By Machine (BBC) [2018]
Full name: “Made by Machine: When AI met the Archive”
Research, prototyping and software for this experimental TV documentary produced at BBC Research & Development in collaboration with BBC Four. Broadcast on BBC Four in September 2018.
We used several machine learning techniques including Densecap, word2vec and LSTM networks to analyse BBC archive material and built a “generative editor” system which produced sequences of clips traversing the various feature spaces.
- Website
- BBC R&D blog post
- On machine vision and photographic imagination - article by D. Chávez Heras and T. Blanke using MbM as a case study; Springer Nature AI & Society journal
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Delaunay Symbols [2018]
This generative 3D series is a homage to several great bearers of the surname Delaunay — Sonia, who cofounded the Orphist art movement with her husband; and Boris, who invented Delaunay triangulation, widely used in computer graphics.
In this series, I applied Delaunay triangulation to random vertex fields and spherical meshes, often exploiting the floating point errors to create complexity. I was inspired by Buddhist symbolism – abstract shapes such as the Gankyil or the dharmachakra. By replacing the faces of the mesh with spheres or tori, complex shapes arise reminiscent of baroque architecture. Blender Cycles, Sverchok3D plugin
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Ex Caelis Oblata [2015]
Final dissertation work for the BMus in Music Computing at Goldsmiths. Available in PDF at academia.edu. Installation piece built on research in sculptural encoding of music, exploring the human experiences of mystery, awe and religious reverence and focusing on the concepts of meaning in relics and cultural artefacts, aesthetics of monolithic art.
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The Artist's Rite [2015]
Spin-off performance work based on the aesthetics and technology of Ex Caelis Oblata. In this performance, the artist gradually destroys a precious sculpture of their own making. Presented at PureGold Festival 2015. Max/MSP, Jitter, openFrameworks, Nintendo Wii, web camera, laser module, piezo microphone, modroc, cleaver, tape.
