The ongoing debate surrounding the integration of Artificial Intelligence into various domains, including art, persists. Those opposed to its use in artistic contexts often argue against AI's capacity to generate imagery derived from diverse inspirations within training data, resulting in creations that are essentially reimagined and repurposed from existing works, without the consent of the original creators.
However, there exist other, more intriguing applications for AI, as demonstrated by some of the artists included in the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
You might recall Olalekan Jeyifous, who won a Silver Lion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice last year for his installation envisioning a futuristic portrayal of Lagos, employing AI to craft a narrative of a techno-ecological retro-future born from the vestiges of colonialism.
In this year's Venice Art Biennale (running until November 24, 2024), Matthew Attard employed AI in a multifaceted installation at the Malta Pavilion in the Arsenale, intertwining physical and virtual realms.
This year's pavilion marks the fourth participation of Arts Council Malta with its own National Pavilion since 2017, and the first occasion the national Pavilion of Malta has been entrusted to a solo Maltese artist, making Attard the youngest to represent the country to date (we was born in 1987).
Entitled "I Will Follow The Ship," the pavilion merges cultural heritage - specifically drawings and historical references - with state-of-the-art digital technology, providing a platform for discourse on authorship and image creation in art.
For his background research, Attard moved from the churches and sanctuaries across the Maltese Islands, where he discovered various forms of ex votos (from Latin, short for ex voto suscepto, "from the vow made") - votive offerings of gratitude or devotion to saints or to God. The maritime-themed graffiti ex votos on the facades of chapels throughout Malta, were likely crafted by seafarers due to the religious significance and sanctuary these structures provided.
These modest etchings on chapel facades symbolize humanity's inclination to leave traces, they are conceived as marks of faith, and un-authored personal experiences, identities, motivations and beliefs.
Within the pavilion, visitors can contemplate pen-plotted drawings on stone panels, a contemporary reinterpretation of the ship-themed graffiti found on the exteriors of wayside chapels.
Three screens invite visitors to engage with the project: in one Attard recreates his ship drawings using an eye-tracker (which captured his eye movements) and generative algorithms. The technology translated this gaze into data points, which were subsequently interpreted to produce lines or drawings. Digital images generated from the data points captured the engravings from various points of view producing a database that served as the basis for artworks such as 3D scans and video compositions.
This symbolic eye-tracking process intertwines human intention, technology, and co-authorship, enabling visitors to uncover the project's multilayered structure.
Attard draws a parallel between tangible historical drawings on stone and contemporary digital drawing, both forms of tracing - sometimes unintentional, always ephemeral or immaterial - and of human actions across time. In Attard’s practice, the eye-tracker serves as an extension of himself (there's a pun in the pavilion title between the words "I" and "eye"...) symbolizing the convergence of human and machine perspectives, and exploring the intersection between humans and technology.
Drawing, digital technology, and historical references converge in the project: the drawings signify humanity's perpetual desire for exploration while hinting at the anonymous individuals who made them and their personal experiences and legacies.
One of the themes that emerges in this pavilion is transformation: the ship evolves from markings on walls to a digital drawing characterised by sketchy and skeletal lines, then to a series of data points and lines of code in the virtual domain, its journey dramatically altered by technology.
A ship drawing continuously materializes on a screen, blurring the line between intentional human input and automated creation. A large screen narrates this exploration, translating wave movement data into a symbolic quest for ships, encapsulating humanity's enduring pursuit of hope amidst uncertainty.
QR codes on one wall invite visitors to engage in digital drawing, expanding the project's scope and adding another layer of authorship through algorithmic transformation.
Rather than using technology solely for image generation, the project aims to dissect and analyze AI and digital technology processes, while prompting contemplation of our society's reliance and faith on digital technology through an artistic approach.
The ship emerges as a timeless symbol of hope and survival, whether carved on weathered chapel walls or digitally rendered. But there is a final metaphor to ponder about here: like the boundless sea, the expanse of data produced by the project (and the data we generate daily...) knows no boundaries - it expands, raising profound questions on the digital realm and on our tangible reality.
The Malta Pavilion presents "I Will Follow the Ship" by Matthew Attard at the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by Arts Council Malta, until 24th November 2024.
Image credits for this post
Installation views, "I Will Follow the Ship" by Matthew Attard, The Malta Pavilion by Matthew Attard at the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Photographer: Eoin Greally.
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