All We'd Ever Need Is One Another (Trio)
Mixed media installation. 2018.
Variable dimensions. 3 flat bed scanners, 4 networked PC computers, large format printer, office supplies, office light, inkjet prints, website, twitter, instagram.
All We'd Ever Need Is One Another (Trio) is a mixed-media installation which creates images autonomously through self-generating techniques: a continuously running “art-factory” operating independently of human input.
The installation self-generates images using three flatbed scanners laying on their side, with scanning surfaces pointing towards one another. A computer script creates automatic mouse movements, randomizing the settings of the proprietary scanning software interface, and beginning a scanning process.
Each newly created image is then analyzed by a series of deep-learning algorithms trained on a database of contemporary artworks in economic and institutional circulation. When an image matches an existing artwork beyond an 80% match, it is "validated as art" and uploaded to a dedicated website and twitter account.
Playing on notions of technological automatization, the agency of objects, cultural consumption, and the economics of artistic production, the installation acts as a golem-like assemblage, continuously and mindlessly self-producing without regard for human spectators.
Continuing from the original work All We'd Ever Need Is One Another (2018, now part of the Permanent Collection of the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal), the Trio version expands the scale and scope of the work, creating a larger variety of randomly-generated images and comparing them to an expanded institutional and commercial database. While the original version relates strongly to the practice of Modernist paintings, Trio extends itself in reference to an equally large body of work in the realm of experimental photography.
allwedeverneedtrio.com
instagram: @allwedeverneed_trio
Production Credits:
Concept, design, R&D: Adam Basanta
Computer Vision & Machine Learning Development: Greg Sadetsky
GUI Programming:
Nicholas Estherer
Photos by Laura Findley.