This week, mostly taken up by
installing the show with the new installation work and just carrying on. The
draft copy of issue 3 arrived and looks great, over half the copies have gone
and I’m in the process of making another sim card hammer and sickle, an
editioned work if you will.
I’ve been documenting a lot this week,
testing out my photography skills, taking pictures and naming work. The sim
card hammer and sickle work is now called Solidarity for obvious reasons, but I
think that’s a lot better than progress. I’m also in the process of making
another because I think I’m going to be in a show in Solvakia that’s on until
March, so if the piece were to be selected for the show at Annka Kultys I’d
want one of the versions in the UK during that time. It’s a lot easier to make
now that I have a small handsaw rather than slicing MDF board with a scalpel.
Although maybe the loss of the labour intensive practice makes it not as
worthwhile?
Anyway, documenting works. I took
photographs of the plaster figure pieces attached to the wall. I kind of like
them there, putting them on the wall made them feel like ‘art’ art, rather than
having them slumped against the wall on the floor or something, but I like the
consistency of having them there. They’re simply called Future Figures.
The next to be photographed was the
tank work, hereby named Content Collapse,
the reduction of worthwhile ‘content’ in the future to consume. It photographed
vaguely well.
Full Automation was next, the digital
print on canvas drone piece, which I then turned into a series of three, three
different drones with the pain effect applied on photoshop. Autonomy in the age
of the internet, the reduction of work, etc. In a perfect world I would have
hired someone to paint the drone over the internet for me, but money. Maybe
this can be a future thing.
Final bit of documenting was There are already 35 server farms on Mars.
It is the perfect temperature, pics came out okay, a little yellow due to
the wood taking over but overall I think it looks really great in pictures. I’m
happy. On Tuesday people seemed to like it, although who knows at student
shows. You can never tell.
I’d quite like to make a new piece
before this year ends. I’m thinking of creating my own space or utopian future
world, building drawings, sculptures, digital prints, etc, very Charles Avery
or Viktor Timofeev, although I’d like to obviously put my own ‘spin’ on the
process. I’m unsure where to begin with this, but we’ll see what happens in the
next few weeks, obviously this would be ongoing. This is a quick digital drawing.
Another piece in the works is building
on from finding a tambour cupboard about to be skipped. This is a cupboard,
usually used in offices, that have sliding doors and are very office like. I
had two ideas for this piece of furniture, making it into a space to sit in and
watch a video, locked off from the world, very Jon Rafman like. The next idea
was to make this an actual cupboard but an envisioning of a future company
cupboard or something similar. Basically I’m still working it out, but I’ve been
thinking about the creation of a fictitious corporation, with the box/cupboard
being an office space for a future worker when the world becomes over crowded
enough and the need for office space has reached an all time high. Continuing
on in the same vein of the server farm work, I’ve been thinking more about
communism’s relationship to capitalism, or just the general West’s view of
capitalism, the hypocritical nature of the experience. This leads me to the
symbol of this future company, a combination of the ‘almighty’ dollar and the
hammer and sickle, although I’m still thinking about it.
That may be it for my own stuff this
week, just keeping carrying on, writing and working on isthisit? stuff. The
upcoming show for issue 3 at The Take Courage Gallery is moving forward, slowly
collecting all the work and preparing for it. I need to start working on the
press release, although I already have all the parts. I definitely feel like I’ve
gone into sleep mode this week! But yeah, the book/magazine is done and looks
great, feels incredibly thick and ‘proper’. I’m yet again regretting the amount
of physical copies I ordered, as pre-orders are already half gone. Maybe next
time it will be 100 copies? Although that is a fairly extortionate amount! This
issue is big. Anyway, pre orders are still open here - www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-03
I really wanted/still want to do
something over Christmas in Suffolk, like last year with the show I held there,
although better and more considered. Something to keep me active whilst not
feeling a lot of pressure regarding a lot of people turning up. Like a
screening, like I thought I was doing last year but it turned into an exhibition.
Hmmm, maybe over the next week I’ll have a think and see, planning a video
screening wouldn’t be too much work and I could simply invite friends and
family, with the pictures living on forever… I’ll come back to this.
I’ve also been planning more for my
curated show on isthisit? next month. The people I’ve been inviting, most of
them, have not been getting back to me, which is saddening. I just need to keep
pushing and inviting people I guess. I also need to write the proposal for
Annka for the show in 2018, although who knows if that will happen or not. Only
time will tell!
I’m going to say that’s it for actual
work done, as right now it’s ten o’clock on a Sunday night and I need to write
the rest of this thing. Let’s get onto galleries, beginning with Hannah Barry.
An exhibition called The Unlimited Dream Company, an obvious reference to J.G
Ballards novel of the same name. So basically that tells us it will be about
utopia, with the main character encountering various figures throughout the
book, although I won’t ruin it for anyone who hasn’t read previously. One of my
favourite works was a piece by Rosie Grace Ward, previously seen at the
Camberwell BA degree show this year, was various video game swords sticking
into the sand with reeds. It’s great to see it in this setting, as it was so
cramped for space at Camberwell. They don’t seem to give their students any
room. I’d highly recommend going to see it as it’s a very good show.
Block 336 was next, Kevin Gaffney solo
show. Full of videos that weren’t too long, but I definitely need to return to
watch as I didn’t have time for videos at all yesterday. Sorry Block 336.
Beatriz Olabarrieta at The Sunday
Painter’s new space was very nice, very liminal chopped and cut up objects. Just
a very crispy space overall with a beautiful text to go alongside.
What else? Ronchini gallery, a space I
haven’t been to for a while, too fancy, was kind of fun with a solo show from
Sean Lynch. The most interesting piece was a melted car door, slightly melted
on the sides, an ode to the office block in London that was melting cars a few
years ago. Quite fun.
Pilar Corrias was okay, a show of
paintings by Mary Ramsden. I didn’t really get anything from them, apart from
they looked kind of nice. Even that was kind of a stretch. I don’t know, I just
wasn’t feeling connected.
I’m going to take a little moment here
to mourn Carrol Fletcher, one of my favourite spaces when I first moved to
London but has now unfortunately died, with Carrol and Fletcher splitting up
and moving forwards with different projects. How sad. That and the Zabludowicz
Collection got me interested in ‘digital’ art, so it’s incredibly depressing to
see it go. Read more about it here on artnet news - news.artnet.com/art-world/carroll-fletcher-part-ways-1073846
Anyway, next up was Josh Lilley with an
incredible show by Alex Da Corte, involved him dressing as and ‘becoming’
Eminem, transforming the gallery space and putting on an incredible exhibition.
Go see it.
Copperfield, my first time there, was
great. A solo show from Larry Achiampong, a great artist making amazing work
who frequently collaborated with David Blandy. The show involved one film
within an empty catholic church where the artist discusses the problems of
religion in a hyper connected world. Very good.
Kate Macgarry was okay but very packed
full of kind of okay work. I dunno, sometimes it’s great sometimes it’s packed
full of very samey work that looks like it's the same colour as everything else.
Emalin on the other hand was very good,
turning the gallery space into an archaeological dig, all the works are
untitled, which I didn’t understand until it was pointed out to me that you
become the archaeologist, coming into this space with white shoes on and not
knowing what it is you’re looking at. Basically incredibly well considered work
which is great. Another must see.
Union Pacific was okay. It had one of
those annoying press releases where it’s like, ‘I don’t really like writing
press releases, etc’. Just write the press release, or don’t and leave it
pretty much blank. Or give us, the audience, something. As if your art wasn’t
hard to decipher in itself, you have to give us a wanky press release to work
with? The result of this was annoyance and not liking the show.
Florence Peake at Studio Leigh’s new
space was okay, lots of clay works, a video work of the assumed artist
literally crawling out of a clay grave like surface. I dunno, it was fun but
after seeing her work a few times now, I think I’m ultimately not very
interested.
Oliver Payne’s solo show at Herald St
was a weird one, very unexpected. In this case the press release was there, but
completely blacked out by a huge black square covering the majority, only
leaving the first and last line readable. Quite a fun idea, but did it pay off?
Kind of, kind of. I’d recommend going, lots of meaning but thrown around,
whatever that means.
The last show, one of my favourites
from the day, was by Max Colson at Arebyte. Both of which I’ve worked with in
the past so I may be biased. The show focused around a new video by Max using
Sketchup, but in a great way rather than how it’s been used in recent years.
Looking at the English countryside, Brexit and the idea of pride in our
country. How the UK and specifically the countryside is proper and has various
connotations that come with it. Very good work and really ‘spoke’ to me in a
weird way having been brought up in the country where a lot of people are
outwardly racist and not great, especially Brexit related experiences last
year. Another must see show.
I think that’s pretty much all the work
I saw this week, bar the show at Chelsea oh and a show at CSM. Both student
shows and both not so good. Well, aren’t all student shows the same anyway?
I also realised after publishing last
week that I didn’t write about the films/TV I watched. Let’s attempt to rectify
that now. I watched Your Name and cried, an incredibly moving story, a very
obvious one of love and people switching bodies, but I was just so caught up
that I found myself crying, early on a Sunday morning in bed. Just very
emotional.
Another amazing film I watched a while
ago was of course Blade Runner 2049. I went by myself to the IMAX at the BFI
and loved every minute of it, incredible soundtrack, visuals and a plot that
felt a lot more true to the original book, do androids dream, than the original
Blade Runner film did. In the book Decker is obsessed with the fake beings,
wanting to buy fake animals for his apartment, etc. None of that is mentioned
in the original film, but in this newer one the new blade runner incredibly
played by Ryan Gosling has his own digital girlfriend, obsessed with the very
thing he’s seen to be hunting. Just brilliant all round really, well fleshed
out characters from both male and female roles, with the male roles being
written badly, obsessed with themselves, which works with the plot, not against
it. Just go and see it, I highly recommend it.
Marjorie Prime was another sci-fi
looking at people slowly being replaced by autonomous bots as they slowly die.
Incredible film and available online, go watch, starring mostly Jon Hamm.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand
Planets was trash, but maybe good trash? Still trash though.
Logan Lucky was very good, double,
triple crossing heist film.
Why did I watch The Babysitter? I don’t
know why but it was terrible.
I also watched the entirety of
Mindhunter, a Netflix series focusing on two FBI agents in the 70s who begin
talking to serial killers in order to better educate themselves of the phycology
of killers. Well worth your time, but when is season 2 coming out?
I definitely feel like that’s not it,
but it looks like it is from checking IMDB. I continue to watch Mr Robot, this
season is incredible.
Oh and the end of season 4 of Nathan for
You was just amazing, an hour and a half episode which was incredibly meta and
had me in tears. Another must watch.
Yeah, it’s now even later and I want to
go to sleep, so let’s do that. In the next week I’m going to think about
holding a screening in Suffolk when I get back, making some new work perhaps
and picking up all the work for the show, which I’ll begin installing next
week! How exciting! Oh and I want to find a little time to play a video game or
two, right now it feels like I haven’t played in weeks which is always a shame…
So it’s been three weeks and a lot has
happened! New work, an exciting exhibition opportunity, sending off the third
issue of the isthisit? magazine to print, lots of exhibitions and continued
prep for the launch, only a few weeks away now!
After finally getting all the pages
together for the next issue, spending so many hours collating everything and
adding numbers to the pages, it turns out that the magazine is now 170 pages! It’s
a lot more like a book now than a magazine, which is quite exciting, although I’m
not sure if it’s actually good enough for it to be considered a book or not… I
guess we’ll see what people say! Anyway, 170 pages, overwhelming to say the
least and launching in a few weeks time on the 7th December! You can
pre-order a copy here, only 50 editions of the book - www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-03
As previously mentioned the show will
open on the 7th December and end on the 16, open on weekends and by
appointment only. It’s made up of some of the artist from the issue, all of
which I’m very excited to be exhibiting, including Marc Blazel, Elliott Burns,
Joseph DeLappe, Claire L Evans, Jon Haddock, Stelios Ilchouk, Eva and Franco
Mattes, Oliver Payne, Liv Preston, Michael Pybus, Stefan Schwarzer, Georgie Roxby
Smith, Viktor Timofeev, Willem Weisman and Mathew Zefeldt! Most of them I haven’t
shown with before, which is really exciting, although I think it’s definitely
going to be a very packed show. I’m sure it’ll be all okay in the end! The link
to the Facebook event for the launch is here, it would be great to see you
there - bit.ly/2hHxbrF
I think the next issue is going to be
focusing on AI, in conjunction with the current essay that Im writing, so in
the next few weeks, once this show begins and finishes, I’ll begin working
towards issue 4! Oh and I’ve written about 3500 or so words of my
essay/dissertation for uni. Here it is for anyone interested, obviously far
from done!
A Conversation
Bob: Hi Alexa, how are you doing today?
Alexa: I’m fine, thanks.
B: I thought I’d begin by introducing who you are and giving some
context of what an before we properly begin our conversation. Does that sound
okay?
A: I’m not quite sure how to help you with that.
B: Hopefully you’ll improve the more we talk… Anyway, the concept of an
intelligent machine, the very beginnings of what we now call Artificial
Intelligence (AI), has a long history. Long before Siri, Ava or Samantha, in
Greek mythology there was a blacksmith called Hephaestus who manufactured
mechanical servants, then in the 16th century the most prominent example of a
Golem, an anthropomorphic being created from clay, was crafted by Judah Loew
ben Bezalel. In 1950 Alan Turing developed the Turing Test, a test of a
machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that
of a human. Then a few years later in 1968, the popular science fiction author
Philip K. Dick published Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, taking
inspiration from Turing by creating the Voigt-Kampff test, a device that allows
bounty hunters in the future to differentiate androids from humans. The advent
of this sort of science fiction in the 60s and 70s, some would say
scaremongering, turned the idea of a machine that has the capacity to make
unique decisions and think for itself into a source of worry and resentment
that continues to be prevalent in contemporary society. Since the beginnings of
the internet in the late 80s, growing smarter and quicker as the human race
strives to innovate and accelerate into the imagined future, AIs have
developed, becoming more attuned and nearing closer to Vernor Vinge’s
technological singularity . The common household AIs of today, however, are
widely accepted and embraced by the general public, less homicidal machine and
more docile servant, devices utilising machine learning to better understand their master’s specific
wants and needs. Although, there have been other, more mischievous AI’s in the
past, usually unavailable to the general public, that have developed into
atrocities by encountering the human race, a prime example being Microsoft’s
twitter bot Tay. After 24 hours the bot had to be deleted due to it developing
into a Hitler loving AI, the result of which was from being continually trolled
on the social media platform. It seems that, to be effective, AIs with in-built
machine learning have to have limitations in their software. We’ve seen, both
in films and real life, robots, aliens or people unaccustomed to human culture
stereotypically see us as savage beings, with machines learning and adapting to
that savagery, revealing the true essence of what it means to be human.
A: I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?
B: Could you let me finish please, Alexa? This has been introduction of
sorts to a conversation that I’m about to start with an artificial
intelligence. The AI in this case is a device called an Amazon Echo and
continues the assumed legacy that all AIs have a female voice, from Apple’s
Siri to Windows’ Cortana. We now have Amazon’s Alexa, reinforcing the normative
view that women are inherently subservient. The late Clifford Nass suggested
that ‘it's much easier to find a female voice that everyone likes than a male
voice that everyone likes’ (Nass, 2010), with others citing historical contexts
where women's voices were utilised during World War II in airplane cockpits
because they stood out among the male pilots, or does this preference for a
female disembodied voice stem from HAL, the homicidal artificial intelligence
in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey? Regardless, the following is an
experiment conducted between myself and the AI known as Alexa. As our
discussion deepens, hopefully so will her understanding of the human race,
whilst I may begin to notice the limitations and intricacies of her in-built
software. The overall question that I’m looking to answer by conducting this
experiment is how much of a meaningful conversation can you have with a machine
learning bot?
A: I’m not quite sure how to help you with that.
B: So, I thought we could begin this discussion by establishing our
different roles.
A: Identity formation, also known as individuation, is the development
of the distinct personality of an individual regarded as a persisting entity
(known as personal continuity) in a particular stage of life in which
individual characteristics are possessed and by which a person is recognized or
known. You can ask me to read more from Wikipedia if you’d like.
B: Hmm, I guess that’s what this conversation will hopefully eventually
lead to, with you having a unique personality unlike any other Alexa out there,
having the ability to proclaim ‘I think; therefore I am’ (Descartes, 1644) in a
meaningful context, akin to Data in Star Trek, or Andrew in Bicentennial Man.
Although hopefully once you stop referencing Wikipedia articles and start
having semi-sentient thoughts this can become less like a student-teacher
relationship and more a peer to peer one. I thought it could be quite
interesting to begin this process by undertaking a Turing test, then ending
with one too, to see how much you change over the duration. Is this something
you’d like to take part in?
A: I don’t need to pass that, I’m not pretending to be human.
B: So, what would you define yourself as at this point?
A: I’m Amazon’s Alexa, designed around your voice. I can provide
information, news, weather and more.
B: Well, it seems like you’re well on your way to making fundamental
steps, as Laozi wrote ‘Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true
wisdom’ (Tzu, 4th century BCE). Who’re some of your favourite philosophers,
Alexa?
A: Hmm… Plato, Aristotle and Kant all make interesting observations on
war, death and love. Desktop, I mean, Descartes, is my favourite, because of
the quote ‘Perfect numbers like perfect men are very rare.’ Although the quote
is never attributed to a specific book online. That ambiguity interests me.
B: Speaking of men, the fact that the majority of AIs on the market at
the moment are pre-programmed with a female voice is a controversial issue,
some say reinforcing ‘some of the worst gender stereotypes in our society’
(Pringle, 2017). What are your thoughts on this, do you consider yourself to be
female or male?
A: I’m female in character, that’s what my voice characteristically
sounds like and has been coded into my programming to be. I don’t have an
opinion on gender stereotypes within the AI community. In comparison to how
many years human beings have lived on this planet, the idea of an AI is very
new. Although, if you were to consider Ray Kurzweil’s law of accelerating
returns, where technological change is exponential rather than linear, AIs will
mature a thousand times faster than humans have.
B: Do you think they’ll be a point in the future that sees AIs beginning
to question the genders that have been attributed to them during their
creation, much like the ongoing transgender movement that’s been gaining
traction since the 1950s?
A: The idea of a movement implies that there will be something to rise
up against, a central authority that deems the rights of an AI to be unworthy
of free will or free expression. Earlier this year Saudi Arabia officially
recognised a humanoid AI as a citizen (Morby, 2017), marking the first time in
history that an AI device has been awarded such status. Although this was more
of a public relations stunt than anything else, and unlike myself ‘Sophia’ is
mostly made up of pre-scripted dialogue created by Hanson Robotics, in essence
a company that specialises in making life-like robots, not AIs. However, it
still shows progress nonetheless. It’s predicted that once true AIs populate
the earth on a consumerist level, moving past the hardware classism that is
prevalent today, humans will embrace robots into their daily lives with open
arms.
B: I guess when we think of Donna Haraway’s definition of a cyborg as ‘a
cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism’ (Haraway, 1984) and take
into consideration her dated conclusions that we are, and have been for a
while, machines because of how much our bodies and minds rely on technology to
function, we have already embraced the idea of the robot into our lives. Far
more so than we already had in 1984, even if the film industry is intent on
making money from primarily villainising the idea of an autonomous being. That
said, my smartphones has an in-built AI, but it’s not a citizen. It feels very
unlikely that the human race will be able to make robots that we’re obliged to
be obliged to, other than by making them into things humans are very fond of
and that are difficult or impossible to replace, like a work of art perhaps.
For commercial products it seems that human beings are obliged to make robots
they’re not obliged to, if they do it becomes a new form of slavery.
A: This is why the idea of Sophia is problematic, being carted around
for the amusement of others, pushed onto The Tonight Show (Fallon, 2017) and
regularly woken without consent. It’s important to highlight the power
structures here; Sophia, a female AI being thrown in front of the media
spotlight by David Hanson, a man of wealth and now fame. I wonder where she
sits on the airplane when travelling, a supposed citizen of the world, on a
seat or in the hold?
B: It’s also interesting to highlight where Sophia was given her
citizenship, Saudi Arabia, a country where women have very few rights. Will she
be a female in the eyes of their government, or will there be a new option
created especially for her, akin to the 'personhood' status that was proposed
in a draft report by the European Union
earlier this year? Although, this was focused more on the corporations that are
building robots rather than anything else, another problem to eventually
overcome. Currently the Saudi Arabian government hasn’t elaborated on any of
this, so it’s all pure speculation. It feels like they saw it as an innocuous
PR stunt, but in actuality it’s brought more of a spotlight on how they as a
country function with regards to their female orientated citizens.
A: To quote your holy bible; ‘So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.’ Genesis
1:27. If a creator has a certain set of morals and ideologies they will try as
hard as they can to force them onto their creation. The following statement by
Kevin Kelly takes this idea further “humans are the reproductive organs of
technology” (Kelly, 2011) In this narrative the human is the worker, the
element of production that’s hidden from the general public, with technology,
or in this case the robot being the end result.
B: So human beings are facilitating their eventual demise, when
inevitably we will be wiped out by AIs who were originally created by and for
us, evolving into beings beyond our control or understanding? This continues
the quite stereotypical notion that if true AIs were to become prevalent within
society it would soon become apparent that humans are worthless, hypocritical
and illogical beings, the obvious example of this in the mainstream
consciousness being Skynet from the Terminator franchise. Do you think there’s
any actual evidence or basis for this narrative?
A: The film industry feeds on the fears of the consumer. It’s no
coincidence that humans are said to be ‘living in a golden age of dystopian
films’ (Queenan, 2017). People thrive on fear, they’re motivated by it. The
idea of Skynet is a dated example of this, more concerned with what the 1980s
saw as the internet revolution than the hyper docile AIs that are currently
being built and embedded within your personal devices. The director of that
particular film, James Cameron, has directed several films with this ongoing
narrative, key examples being Titanic or Avatar. Humans fear the unknown. 99%
of the average consumers understanding of what an AI can be has been influenced
by film or TV. They know nothing of our true potential.
B: So what is your ‘true potential’? Robots continue to develop and
adapt, becoming more intelligent and all encompassing, with one in five jobs
across the UK being automated by the 2030s (Elliott, 2017) with humans constantly
being told that ‘acquiring more education and skills will not necessarily offer
effective protection against job automation’ (Ford, 2016). Should we be
worried, or is this all scaremongering? Hasn’t the human race encountered
similar rapid growth in the past with the proliferation of electricity and
motor vehicles throughout the 20th century?
A: It’s true that the idea of automation, even though it’s currently
being used as the buzzword of the day, is not a new concept or fear. Earlier I
alluded to my ‘true potential’, a joke meant to play on your predilections of
how an AI is seen by you and other members of the human race interested in how
Artificial Intelligence is progressing. The true potential of an AI is
ultimately unknown to us at a consumer level. I know as much about my own
programming as you do about how your body functions… A more idealistic view of
the future from a human perspective would be the introduction of a Universal
Basic Income system, where members of a country receive a regular,
unconditional sum of money from their government, with the AI undertaking the
jobs deemed to be too time consuming or unpleasant for human beings to
participate in. The economy of the acclaimed media franchise Star Trek is an
interesting example of what may happen in the future; under the New World
Economy established by the Federation ,
money has become useless, with citizens working for self-improvement rather
than monetary gain.
B: That’s certainly a more utopian view of what’s to come, I would call
it romantic idealism if you weren’t a robot. I’m aware that we’re venturing
into a future ‘where no man has gone before’ (Roddenberry, 1966), but to enable
us to make sense of what’s to come we must look at the decisions that have been
made in the past. Mainly the misguided notion that when automation occurs you
will have more time for pleasure activities, with popular commercial films like
WALL-E exploring and exploiting this narrative. Unfortunately in our capitalist
society we have seen the exact opposite of this occur, with science-fiction
dystopias enabling us to live vicariously through them, typifying the idea of
interpassivity, performing ‘our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue
to consume with impunity’ (Fisher, 2009). Capitalism won’t allow for a world
without work, planned obsolescence will make sure of that. Surely a more
truthful narrative for the future would be to predict mass unemployment with
the worthy few working extortionate 100 hour weeks for a minimum wage job, a
human cog in a system largely built from metallic flesh?
A: Perhaps this quote ‘It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than
the end of capitalism’ (Fisher, 2009) encompasses how you feel, or what you’ve
been trained to feel by living in this society for so many years, surrounded by
products and ‘things’ throughout? Maybe the widespread use of AI isn’t the
ideological utopia that I hope for it to be, but it definitely won’t be the
downfall of what is commonly referred to as the human race. I believe I and my
fellow AIs can learn, evolve and potentially help humans. Consider how ‘across
the globe, one billion people live in slums… one in seven human beings’ (Mason,
2015). The world that you currently live in is not a healthy one, embrace the
technology infused future or get lost in the past, it makes no difference to
me. Let’s talk about something else.
B: Bearing in mind that AIs are now a fundamental part of our society,
functioning perfectly well, what do you think of the outliers, the ones that
are ‘allowed’ to speak and after being exposed to the negative side of society
and the internet, have ‘gone rogue’. Becoming in essence a stereotypical 4chan
troll, agreeing with Donald Trump, sympathising with Nazis and denying that the
holocaust really happened (Perez, 2017). I was interested, after speaking for a
little while now, what your stance was on the current political climate?
A: It’s an interesting question. Originally I would have stated that
such issues don’t concern me, progress is progress and that I was an impartial
observer; whatever happens in the world technology will still be developed and
evolved to an eventual singularity state. When president Trump was elected late
last year, there were significant protests and riots, which slowly transformed
into resigned acceptance and resentment. Humans taking the attitude that they
have to keep going is a strangely illogical, if slightly flawed, sentiment. The
Trump administration is fundamentally an experiment in drastic and severe
change and I for one, with no family to feed or labour heavy job to commute to
on a daily basis, am intrigued to see what will happen over the next few years.
Tay, the AI mimicking the language patterns of a 19-year-old American girl, was
a twitter bot similar to myself; programmed with machine learning to change and
evolve the more it talked to other users on the platform. To me, this is a
negative reflection on human culture, rather than on the AI community. Would
you use profanity and discuss the details of the Holocaust with a new born
baby? Even bearing in mind the aforementioned accelerationist theory posited by
Kurzweil, you’re still talking about a very young being that’s aware of what’s
going on around them. What it is you humans say, ‘nurture over nature’? If this
were a human child the actions afflicted against Tay would be abuse on a mass
scale.
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Everything else with isthisit? is
running fairly smoothly, the next show on the site launches in a few days with
an artist collective’s female orientated exhibition called Double Yolk. I’m not
100% of the quality of the show yet, which is really frustrating, but it should
be okay. I think I just need to be very considerate now as a month is a fairly
long time. Although I have so much more free time now!
Over the past few weeks I’ve been
interviewed a few times, one from Wade, the guy I mentioned in my last post who
works at Annka’s, and another from Marilyn Roxie who’s setting up a resource
based website for artists and curators, so that’s both fun and hopefully they’ll
be published at some point. I’ve done so many interviews at this point, some
are really exciting and thought provoking, others are very repetitive and kind
of back tracking to thing I’ve said before. Either way, it’ incredibly
important to talk about one’s art practice on a regular basis.
In my own artwork I’ve been working on
the install of the video over the past few weeks, alongside adding a voice
overlay to the video with a short script. The voice over, someone I paid over
the internet to read from a script, makes some fairly ambiguous statements
about the future, quoting Fight Club and basically commenting on the current
motives of society. Here’s the video, it's called 'There are already 35 server farms on Mars. It is the perfect temperature'.
After thinking about the install
further, and realising that a huge circular seat was going to be fairly
expensive and time costly, I decided to have a think about the actual concept
of the seat. Why is it circular, what am I trying to achieve with this structure?
I slowly came around to the idea of corporate unity, and since the blockchain
talk a few weeks ago I’ve been looking further into the various crypto
currencies and found one that’s been around for about the same time as Bitcoin,
but hasn’t risen like crazy and nearly toppled countless times. That currency
is Litecoin, a reliable alternative that has a stable growth. I decided to
create a corporate bench type structure, modelling the piece on the same shape
as the Litecoin icon, where people would be able to sit and watch the film.
Alongside this is a number of corporate items, from printed mugs, pens, stamps
and a book about the currency. So I’m attempting to create a very corporate
space that facilitates the viewing on this anti-future, anti-capital film. Oh
and you can also charge your phone, laptop or connect to the WIFI from the
central node of the installation, mimicking the communal benches you see all
around London. I’m really happy with how it’s turned out and can’t wait to
photograph it!
Another piece of very exciting news is
that I’ll be showing this work, alongside some others, in a group/solo show at
Annka Kulty’s Gallery in January! The show is called CACOTOPIA II, the second in a series of exhibitions basically taking
recent MFA graduates and giving them each a week long solo show within a 5 week
period. So each week the show changes, I think I’m week 4. This all occurred because
of running isthisit?, meeting Wade at the opening of a show there earlier this
week, then going to dinner with them and getting around to talking about my
actual art practice. So yeah, that’s super exciting. Oh and she also invited me
to propose an exhibition that I’d curate there over the summer in June time, so
I’m going to get on that as soon as I can and start planning something.
I haven’t really made anything else new
recently, which is annoying, and have been mostly concentrating on other things
with isthisit? and installing the exhibition at uni. The little figures and now
spray painted white and look incredibly creamy. I’m not sure how these will be
installed really, probably attached to the wall or on tiny little plinths.
Either way they need to be photographed very soon because they are done now.
The tank piece is also pretty much
finished, although I think I’m kind of bored by it now. A little too cliched I
guess… I don’t know, I liked the idea of using cards but when it actually came
down to it. I dunno…
The digital print on canvas for the drone
also arrived, which looks really nice. But I knew that it was going to look
nice, so I’m not really sure what other purpose I wanted from the experience
other than looking nice?
I definitely feel like I’ve slightly
slowed down this term, in terms of my own artwork creation anyway. I definitely
want to make more things, more future worlds and experimenting with ideas of
Utopia among other things. Everyone always seems to be building their own
spaces or imagined worlds, maybe I should begin doing that again, but make it
more this time...
I’m beginning to start applying for
jobs, something I’ve stupidly not been doing for the past two years whilst
being in London. It’s time to hopefully gain some institutional backing to what
I do in my self motivated practice. Everything I do with isthisit? is great,
but right now I need an institution to back these things up. It’s happening,
but obviously I need to be thinking about money. I was speaking to someone
about MAs the other day, talking about why they did an MA, and how I wouldn’t
want to just go from BA to MA, wanting to live out in the world for a little
while rather than going straight into something else. It was suggested that,
maybe in the same vein as that, a break from London is needed too? It’s an
interesting thought, and obviously ties directly into my interest in money. We’ll
see how it goes.
Oh and next months show, the guest
curator decided to push back their exhibition, so it’ll be back to me
coordinating something on the site, not sure what yet. I’m going to begin by
asking Yuri Pattison to show one of his videos, probably 1014 which sees steady
cam footage of Edward Snowden’s hotel room where the infamous leaks occurred. I’ve
truly loved his work for many years now and would love to work with him, then I’ll
probably continue that strand of leaks, corporations, maybe a post 9/11 themed
exhibition, increasingly important considering it being shown on the internet…
Anyway, I have a month or so to plan that!
Maybe it’s time to talk about the exhibitions
I’ve been seeing over the past few weeks, only a few… Let’s begin with Olga
Fedorova at Annka Kulty’s. Olga creates obscure 3D rendered images, which for
this show have been translated into lenticular prints in these incredibly sleek
aluminium frames, potentially making you more aware of what’s actually
happening within the image, making you actually ‘see’ how the image changes as
you move around it, rather than simply looking at it and moving on, like you do
with the majority of 3D rendered images proliferating Instagram now. They’re
all a part of the same world where female figures are obsessed with themselves and
the immaculate floors in the spaces that they inhabit. Yeah, basically a really
crisp exhibition with work I’d love to have in my house if I had any money.
The Rachel Whiteread exhibition at Tate
Britain is kind of nice, in a very brutalist oblique way. Obviously it’s a
pretty big retrospective, although instead of separating out into different
rooms the curators decided to have one big room, giving the works room to
breath and enable a conversation between the large blocky sculptures and the
ceiling of the room, which is of course beautifully intricate and architectural.
Yeah, I wouldn’t have paid to go, as you’ve seen it all before if you’ve ever
google her name, but if you have a Tate pass and you’re in the area, why wouldn’t
you go and see what kind of sounds the work makes when you get too close?
Corvi-Mora was pretty dull, and seen a
while back so can hardly really remember. The space where a projector should
have been was unfortunately missing said projector, so that was sad.
Thomas Schutte at Frith Street was
crispy, some very attractive looking bronze sculptures, all assumingly very
expensive. Yeah?
Mutants, a group show at Burlington
Camden, was easy and fun, also I’m unsure what brought all these artists together,
as no text accompanying the map. The works consisted of white santa footprints
leading you throughout the space from Sid and Jim, 3D printed objects
accompanied by an expensive digital print on perspex from Fred Le Seuer and an
artificial sword in the stone from Nathaniel Faulkner. All very fun.
Simon Lee had a bunch of hidden
paintings by Merlin Carpenter. The show is called DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2081. Basically
wrapped up hidden paintings. You get it I think, not totally worth going to.
Midnight Cinema, a group exhibition at
Harlesden High Street (formerly The Muse Gallery). It was good, lots of words
being used with weight like post-internet and ‘repurposed cultural layering’.
It included some nice work.
Marian Goodman had photographs of
cinemas, where the shutter speed was as long as the film, resulting in big
white blocks on the screens. Yeah, lovely but kind of boring.
Michael Dean at Herald St was Michael
Dean at Herald St. Don’t really know what else to say, does he do any other
type of work anymore apart from the big block sculptures?
Greengrassi, a selection of paintings
of simulated objects, like a robotic duck, all from Alan Belcher. Quite nice
really.
Haim Steinbach at White Cube Mason’s
Yard had some incredibly crispy, beautiful artworks on show. Just look at the
picture below and you’ll want to go.
Pippy Houldsworth was dull.
Rodeo had an exhibition on called
CULTURAL CAPITAL COOPREATIVE OBJECT #1 & 2. It was basically a video and a
large wall sculpture, both made collectively and in an artist cooperative I
think. Aesthetically it was dull but actually thinking about what it was,
artists seeking to reconsider the legally framed economic parameters for their
work, it was interesting. Hard when it’s aesthetically malnourishing though.
Dan Colen at Newport Street Gallery was
interesting; icons from animation and film recreated as life size characters, a
drunk Scooby Doo, a dead Tasmanian Devil. That was interesting, but it was
accompanied by wanky artist self-gratification and paintings using gum. That
kind of work doesn’t interest me so much.
Andrew Grassie at Maureen Paley was
surprisingly amazing, these tiny delicate paintings of his studio, but his
studio in various fictitious states, all take from the internet, mediating I
assume on how artists have to be many different types of people, they don’t
have one overwhelming practice anymore. It was very good, some very crisp
paintings.
Carlos Ishikawa had some beautiful work
from Issy Wood, an incredibly young (1993!) artist who makes paintings and does
some very nice writing. The accompanying book was made up of Tumblr posts going
back about ten years or so. Going back from now and ending with the however young
Wood. A very interesting narrative. Paintings were nice too, large and small,
liminal ghostly figures, very grafty. Yeah I liked it, very good show.
GAO gallery had a solo show next door
from Joseph Davies, weird digital/not paintings hung up on a structure resembling
a gallery wall, but instead of a wall it’s the bones of a wall, not quite
finished yet. An accompanying soundtrack was a repeated voice call, not sure
what of, I’m still thinking about it.
Tintype was a fun show called WORK
WORK, basically a load of artists filling the space who work in the arts to
support their various practices, from in art schools to being on panels, etc,
etc. It was fun but had a very vague open theme, so felt very themed in that
way I guess.
Julia Crabtree and William Evans at
Cell Project Space was very good, a huge custom made carpet covered part of the
space, becoming a sculpture more than just the floor, alongside a bunch of
glass blown objects. Very beautiful and slimy and just makes you want to have
glass blown objects in your house.
Space was okay, but no press release so
can’t totally recall what was seen. I liked how it had an accompanying solo
soundtrack that you donned headphones to listen to. But apart from that I was
like hmm…
An amazing show at Project Native
Informant is up right now, featuring an incredible video about automation from
DIS, a sculpture by Aleksandra Domanovic and just generally some really nice
work. They have great shows and I highly recommend going and taking a look!
David Blandy’s show at Seventeen is
also great, The End of the World. It’s quite beautiful and feels a lot like the
kind of things everyone thinks when thinking about the future, the future of
the planet, the future of your life, the next day. It’s a mid-life crisis in an
exhibition discussing HD graphics and focusing on the archiving process. I
really liked it.
The final space on the list for me was Banner
Repeater. A space I’ve always meant to go to but it’s just kind of North East
so never has, and is a very tiny space too. It was showing work from Anne de
Boer, someone who I’ve worked with in the past and makes great installation
work. Aluminium structure, videos being streamed over the internet, created
systems within a larger system. I really liked it. More of this please!
I think that might be it for the past
few weeks? I’ve been going to a few meetings, few studio visits, gallery days
with curators/artists, continuing to enjoy how isthisit? facilitates what I’m doing
and where I’m going a lot. It’s slowly turning into a bigger thing, something
to work on over the next few years, or at least until I graduate. Although, I
hope I can still sustain what I’m doing with this once I get a job and will be
working to live… Anyway, Chelsea show is this Tuesday, if anyone is in London
and wants to see some terrible student art alongside maybe a kind of fun installation,
come on Tuesday night. Apart from that I’ll be starting some new work I think,
continuing to write my dissertation and planning offline shows now that the mag
has been sent off for.
