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Juror Statement: It has been an honor to participate as a guest juror for Coding Creativity at Hera Gallery. The range of submissions was expansive in material and each elaborated on notions of coding and AI, exploring ideas surrounding computer-generated artwork and craft. The theme is incredibly timely considering the proliferation of AI as a tool, a resource, as well as a potential threat. How do cultural producers intuit the creative world through technology-supported images? As artists continue to push boundaries with technology, how do they understand the potential and limits of works generated with the aid of technology? The artists selected for the exhibition each demonstrate a dynamic approach to the subject of coding creativity, which can be seen in the exciting variety of material and scope of subject matter. Each artist has approached the topic in a unique way, leading to a rich visual lens in which to understand the world we live in.  - Kate McNamara

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Antonia Kimball

In order to articulate her personal experiences and further understand the complexities of what it means to be human, Kimball investigates the relationship between people and trauma, particularly cycles of abuse. In doing this, she explores the invisible mechanisms of the brain to address its interconnectedness with the body. This investigation has also led her to think through human adaptation to technology and its pitfalls. Using mixed media, she makes works about her past, present, and future. In her work Other Parts of the Body (2023), a mixed media artist book, she uses medical terminology to interpret how the brain recovers from trauma to highlight the brain-body connection in a highly personal narrative. In, Message Deleted (2023), a Claymation about cybernetics and the rise of the personal computer, she wants viewers to use their perception to consider how their senses have become, and are increasingly dependent on technology.

Kimball bases her work on the idea that our experiences guide our senses and how we interact with each other and ourselves. In her work she wants her viewers to reflect on how they engage with technology and interpersonal violence and the larger implications each have on our overall health. She asks us to question the kinds of relationships we have formed and envision what might happen if we don’t mitigate the negative effects of our dependencies that have formed. Ultimately, Kimball wants the viewer to think through what they consider abuse to be defined as and the multiple ways it manifests in themselves.

 

Eugene Provenzo 

I am a retired university professor (University of Miami 1976-2013). Although my main work has been as an educational historian and cultural theorist, art and design have been constants in my professional life. Beginning in the late 1970s, I began to work on various projects involving innovative toy design, book design, the creation of museum exhibits, as well as multimedia and video game development. Separate from my professional work and inspired by the 1980 retrospective exhibit of the work of Joseph Cornell (1903-1972) at the Museum of Modern Art, I began to work as a collage and assemblage artist. Throughout my academic career I would occasionally be invited to exhibit some of my pieces. A high point for me early on was the exhibit in 1979 of my system of “Golden Mean Blocks” at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. 

Having retired from research and teaching, I am now devoting myself to working full-time as an artist. I consider myself to be part of an outsider art tradition. I am essentially self-trained. My work is eclectic and integrative. I use both traditional techniques and found materials. Much of my inspiration is historical. I draw deeply on linguistic and cultural tropes ranging from modes of play to representation in popular culture sources such as television, comic books and mass circulation magazines. There is a consciously developed narrative quality in much of my work. 

 

I have a somewhat dated website (I am still catching up from a near fatal case of Covid from a year ago, as well as a recent case) at: 

 

http//:gpartpro.com 

 

A web based academic vita can be linked to by clicking on below: 

Web Based Vita 

Artist’s Statement: in reference to the piece, “Ada Lovelace and the Dream of Artificial Intelligence,” to be included in the Hera Gallery Exhibit, Coding Creativity (Fall 2023).  

“Ada Lovelace and the Dream of Artificial Intelligence” reflects my interest as a scholar and artist in the origins of modern computing and more specifically, the Mathematician Ada Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), who is widely recognized as the first computer programmer. Throughout her writings, she makes reference to the possibilities of what machines, such as Charles Babbage’s Analytical and Difference Engines (proto steam driven calculating machines), have in creating new forms of machine driven intelligence. The following quote is an example of Lovelace’s belief that what we describe in our own era as AI (Artificial Intelligence) has the potential to create music. 

“The Analytical Engine might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.: 

 

This quote by Lovelace inspired my work on the piece included in the Hera exhibit. In the work, I included collaged sources from Lovelace’s notebooks and writings, as well as diagrams of Babbage’s computing machines and various portraits of Lovelace and her father, Lord Byron. There is a deliberate “machine” quality to the piece. 

 

One final note: three technologies contributed to creation of this piece. The first is the use of the computer to reference materials and sources that would not otherwise be available. The second is the use of Photoshop as an essential design tool. Finally, sophisticated computer-controlled printing for commercial signs makes it possible to recreate collage materials on a much larger scale. The piece included in this exhibit measures 36” by 96”. It can easily be even larger and still maintain its integrity. These three elements coming together have had a transformational effect on me as an artist. There is something new at work here—something perhaps as important as Picasso realizing in the second decade of the 21st century that pieces of printed paper could be combined together to create a new art form—what we have come to describe as collage. 

 
 

Mark Burchick

As we find ourselves speculating about the potential for AI to manifest into a new form of “non- human intelligence,” Noo Icons explores how our religious history has memorialized encounters with non-human intelligences."Noo" in the title refers to the Noosphere, a proposed evolutionary biosphere representing humanity's collective consciousness. Some have proposed the concepts of the internet, transhumanism, and artificial intelligence as representing this Noosphere.

The rear projected stained-glass window in this installation is produced using Deforum Stable Diffusion combined with DreamBooth, an open-source tool which allows users to further refine the training data used to produce these images. By creating an ethically sourced data set of photographs of Rose Windows from around the world, the continuously generating composite images produce an ethereal display of light and color. The altar piece is created using DreamFusion, a text-to-3D image renderer. The digital asset is then altered and 3D-printed in metallic gold plastic to suggest a monstrance, a housing for the “living presence” of Christ in the Eucharist wafer, or reliquary used to contain physical remains of the saints. In housing a lithium battery, the sacred nature of this rare-earth mineral which takes millions of years to naturally form is made central to the installation. Lithium not only serves as the physical backbone of AI technologies, suggesting the “living presence” of a new form of non-human intelligence, but it also is increasingly scarce. Current estimates suggest that we may be on track to exhaust the world’s lithium reserves by 2040.

 
 
 

Aric Attas

I’m an artist and two-time cancer survivor who believes he’s a two-time cancer survivor because he’s an artist. I make abstract photographs, immersive video installations and ambient sound environments. Inspired by modern science, the myths of ancient spirituality and my meditation practice, my art explores the mysteries of the universe. If you’ve ever looked up at the stars and felt a sense of wonder, of awe or transcendence you understand what drives me to create.

The title of this piece, Standing on the Shore of the Cosmic Ocean, references Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking book Cosmos. As it wove together science, art, history, anthropology and philosophy, Cosmos fed my curiosity about our place in the universe in a way that continues to this day. This work is a way for me to explore that curiosity through music.

Standing on the Shore of the Cosmic Ocean is a composition of rules and probabilities defining scales, harmonies and rhythms written using generative music software called Wotja. The composition is converted into a musical score that is being communicated via MIDI in real time to the multiple layers of synth sounds I designed producing the generative music you are listening to.

As an infinitely evolving generative piece Standing on the Shore of the Cosmic Ocean is never the same, it is an ever-changing collaboration between artist and algorithm.

I have a BS in Psychology from Hobart College and an MFA in Photography from the Hartford Art School. I’ve won a number of awards for my work and have been widely exhibited. My approach is to use art, music, workshops, creativity coaching and lecturing to share the healing power of creativity with others.

 

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