2020-2021
version 2.0
artificial life
www.beneaththeneuralwaves.com
Photos: Aiiiii, Kai, XuBo
How can we dream up new ecosystems? Can doing so help us understand the concept of existing always in relationship to others?
Beneath the Neural Waves explores biodiversity through an attempt at creating (digitally) an aquatic ecosystem as a means of attempting to engage with the very abstract concept of relationship. These dioramas of artificial life, together with the various sculptural fragments, imagery, and text, reach out towards the complex entanglement of natural life, both with itself and others.
The choice of the aquatic, specifically the coral reef, was due to our belief that these reefs ecosystems are the perfect example of how the interconnectedness occurs in the natural world between life, no one creature is the core component of the reef, rather it emerges from the interwoven whole of all the individual component species.
Deep learning allows us to take a contemporary approach to pattern extraction. It facilitates extracting three-dimensional patterns from nature and rearranging them to envision new speculative worlds. By choosing this workflow we were faced with the challenge of creating datasets, teaching us how the available data and the way it represents marine life reflects how humans look at the natural world. Neural networks trained on coral reefs and their many inhabitants produce a large variety of 3D models which are then brought together to form new, speculative reefs from beneath the neural waves.
exhibited:
2021 Aiiiii: The Book of Sand (CN) (link)
2021 Control the Virus Vol 03 (UK) (link)
2021 Hybrid by Nature Human.Machine.Interaction (KR/CH) (link)
2021 RE:Humanism 2: re:define the boundaries (IT) (link)
2021 NVIDIA GTC ‘AI Art Gallery’ (US) (link)
2021 New Art City Festival 2021 (US) (link)
2021 Zero Emissions by 2099 (US) (link)
2021 VisionarIAs (ES) (link)
awards:
2021 RE:Humanism 2: 1st Prize (IT) (link)
2021 CVPR 2021 Shortlist (US) (link)
Online exhibition of a neurally generated sea-floor that can be explored through an interactive web experience, originally shown as part of 'Hybrid by Nature Human.Machine.Interaction' by the Korean Goethe Institute and HEK. Visit online at www.beneaththeneuralwaves.com.
Images from the RE:Humanism 2 're:define the boundaries' exhibition at MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts.
Photos: Sebastiano Luciano and Giulia Parmigiani.
A generated phylogenetic tree of neural coral specimens along with the interactive, augmented reality experience: 'Coral Spawner'.
A meditative, online experience of an AI-generated coral reef for Nvidia's '2021 AI Art Gallery'. Click here to visit the experience hosted at Nvidia's AI Art Gallery.
Special thanks to cables.gl.
Online exhibition of specimens of corals from Beneath the Neural Waves for New Art City. Arranged in phylogenetic trees that display their speculative evolution around which generated fish swim. Careful where you tread, however, you might just scare them if you get too close! Click here to visit web experience on newart.city.
Thanks to Jack Julian for the aquatic soundtrack.
Special thanks to Joel Simon.
Physical installation (AI-generated sculpture, video & text) and an online experience as part of the 'Zero Emissions by 2099' exhibition at MAMA, Rotterdam, Netherlands. Click here to visit the virtual showroom.
The first exhibition, realized as part of an arts residency hosted by the Etopia Centro de Arte y Tecnología in Zaragoza, Spain, and shown as part of the 'VisionarIAs' exhibitionthat took the form form of AI-generated sculptures, video, and interactive web experience.
With special thanks to Blanca Perez Ferrer.
Photos by Julian Fallas.