The Artist in the Machine

Form, it is sometimes said, is like a mechanical framework that is only brought to life with corresponding content. Architectural form can also have an inherent rigidity – as long as it is not “animated” through artistic means or practical everyday solutions. But what if this animating function itself is outsourced to the machine? What if the artistic process is delegated to computational procedures? Is this less creative than a result conceived by humans, or is there possibly “more” of the creative evident here?  

Claudia Larcher investigates this complex of questions by means of an experimental arrangement she has designed. She fed the data from her collage series Baumeister (2011–2021) into a self-learning neural network – or rather two of them, consisting of a “generator” and a “discriminator” (together called “GAN”). The program called “Artificial Assistant No. 2” is intended to create works based on this setup – and does so brilliantly! At first one seems to perceive a solid structure emerging, in the form of a greyish modernist façade. But such old-fashioned illusions soon come to an end. The crafty machine-mind constantly stretches, distorts, and bends the image, which simply will not come to a stop. Even in the second attempt, nothing here really wants to become a “form” – or if it does, then it’s something that lies beyond all formalistic thinking. Adding to all this is the soundtrack, which is synchronized with the unstable wafting image, and derived from it using “assistants” called Dynascore and Imaginary Soundscape. It hammers and whistles, trumpets and whirrs – while the digital master builder at work here condenses its work into ever more amorphous streams of the Art Informel.  

In the end, this android didn’t dream of electric sheep, but instead freed itself from any “humanoid” appearance.