There are many artists who work with machine computation and algorithms in their practice, from collaborating with machines to creating kinetic and mathematical systems. These works would either focus on various applications of computation or on how these systems would influence human life.
These machines could be of traditional structural forms like the kinetic and mathematically influenced structures of Daniel Rozin and Reuben Margolin, or could focus on new and emerging forms of technological media, such as machine learning and AI, as seen in the works of Memo Akten and Mario Klingemann. These artists often critique or question these new forms of technology.
Artists like Sougwen Chung collaborate with these machines to question our interactions with them. Similarly, Random International tends to use very technological systems to explore the machine-human dynamic.
With my current work, I have been experimenting with electromagnetism, as it encapsulates the invisibility and intangibility of black-boxed algorithms and computation. Fito Segrera’s “Conversation of Chaos” is an electromagnetic artwork that emphasises the chaotic nature of machines. Whereas Taki’s magnetic sculptures create invisible structures perfectly balanced in space. Both these have influenced my experiments.
The biggest new media digital artist at the moment would arguably be Refik Anadol, who is known for creating large animations that touch on ideas like “machine consciousness”, “machine memories” and “using data as a paintbrush”. The main idea with Refik work’s is the anthropomorphosis of machine workings. He uses poetic terminology to create analogies of computation and AI with human-centric concepts such as human memories. In “Melting Memories”, the organic flowing visuals creates the illusion of a thinking and living entity within the machine. The sheer size and aesthetics of the work creates a sense of awe – but without the actual AI in the artwork, the algorithm and visuals looks the same, and does the same thing, emphasising the idea that how we interpret these machines is way too susceptible to speculative notions, and the over-exaggerations of the art world.
In contrast to Refik’s work, we have the artistic and fun creations of Azumi Maekawa, who is an engineer that uses these algorithms in their purest forms to create machines with advanced AI systems. One creative work, has arbitrary branches moving through reinforcement learning algorithms.
Ruairi Glynn’s “Fearful Symmetry” consists of a suspended robotic light that has the qualities of a living and breathing entity, and questions our hyperawareness of future intelligent or living machines. Similarly, I want people to question these machines, and the randomness that is generated by these machines, where we look at this repositioning of ourselves with respect to the machine, and don’t force speculation or humanistic analogies, but rather appreciate the beauty and ironic simplicity of computation, whether we truly understand it or not, because to us, they could just be… these random machines.
Nirav Beni 