Working with AI art sometimes feels like gazing into a pond of water. In a still pond, we see a clear, gently blurred version of ourselves staring back at us, while turbulent waters return rippled echoes of our shape. These changing reflections of ourselves are similar to images generated from data, which can be hyperrealistic depictions of the original, or images that are surreal and barely recognizable, as errors creep in.
This exhibition looks at the way artists represent nature and humans, using the latest machine learning technologies to conjure seascapes, imaginary marine creatures, autumn leaves, and musings on the human form. Masks and faces akin to the grotesque rear their heads, reminding us of the early errors of these technologies and the eternal human fascination with depicting ourselves. These artists present AI as a tool to craft new reflections on perennial subjects, as well as a creative partner, conjuring new landscapes, creatures, and forms. —Luba Elliott

Feral File #007 - Reflections in the Water

Jake Elwes&rsquo;s &ldquo;CUSP - Marsh Birds&rdquo; is part of his CUSP series, where a familiar childhood location on the Essex marshes is reframed by inserting images randomly generated by a neural network into this tidal landscape. The machine has been trained on a photographic dataset, learning the qualities of marsh birds and in the process producing images that fluctuate between species, with unanticipated variations emerging without reference to human systems of classification. The animation migrates from bird to bird, accompanied by a soundscape of artificially generated bird song. The setting of the AI-generated work on a screen in a natural environment enables a rare form of dialogue between native birds and the artificial ones, augmenting and disrupting the ecology of the location. In this edition we watch 12 mash birds from the project as they flow between recognizable forms and dissolve into textures of water and mud.

CUSP - Marsh Birds #75

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