Rothko, the machine and me scrolls 
Installation shot with projection 
Installation shot with end wall projection
Having once seemed an age away, my next creative practice project was suddenly upon me, I have been focusing much of my energy on the forthcoming MFA interim show in the James Hockey Gallery so adding in this project felt like quite a stretch.
Discussion with my co-exhibitor, Tianxing surfaced a number of possible titles. I always find it easier when I have a theme in mind. We decided Invocation would be a good title as it gave us plenty of scope for development – from magic and spells to religion and faith. I had been working with some basic Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and thought that machine learning fitted nicely with the notion of Invocation, that is bringing something new into being.
Having used two sets of training images previously I decided on a new approach and used a set of publicly available Rothko images. I set the GAN to work for an hour and it produced 3,200 square format images (a small selection are included in the video above). What emerged showed evidence of the tradition of Abstract Expressionism but in some cases, they also looked to me like images of genetic coding. I’m not quite sure how it happened but this put me in mind of a long thin format and the idea of scrolls emerged. I was intrigued by the notion of one of the oldest communication technologies being in relation with one of the newest.
While we had limited time to co-create there were interesting parallels in our work – different forms of mysticism, a matrix framework and orderly presentation that carries an underlying complexity. The works questioned our roles as artists and revealed the human condition in different ways.
My artist statement outlined the project approach:
An invocation can be regarded as a spell or charm that brings something into being, it may be verbal, or it may be written. In the case of ‘Rothko, the machine and me,’ the underlying invocation is that of the algorithm that has set to work on a series of Mark Rothko paintings to bring something new to life. The algorithm is a form of contemporary magic that few of us understand or are a party to creating but that is having an increasing impact on how we live our lives.
I am creatively influenced by abstract expressionism (colour field in particular) but am also often irritated that the many women in the movement get less recognition than the likes of Mark Rothko. The opportunity to perform an invocation on his work was too tempting to resist. One hundred and eleven publicly available images of Rothko paintings were fed into a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) programme and processed for an hour, at the end of which 3,200 computer generated images were produced. While I was part of the process, I had little control over, or idea of, what would be produced.
A small random selection of the resulting new works has been turned into three scrolls in a form of remediation (Grusin & Bolter, 2000) whereby one of the newest technologies (machine learning) is reinterpreted as one of the oldest (the scroll). Beside the scrolls the individual images are projected in their digital form. Working with machine invocations raises interesting questions about my creative role – am I sorceress, artist, editor, archivist, or collaborator?
I was asked some incredibly thoughtful questions about the work that has given me lots to think about and work with:
- How do I see my relationship with the computer – antagonistic or productive?
- Why not use one of the women from the AbEx movement if I am concerned that they are not acknowledged as much as Rothko?
- What if you’d included the binary code or evidence of the algorithm?
- Is the machine learning a tool like any other artistic tool?
- Can you recreate something similar by analogue – layers of acetate?
- If you reversed the algorithm would it create a Rothko?
- What about other forms – stained glass or vinyl?
- Is your pragmatism also gendered?
- Would a viewer know the concepts behind the work by looking at it?
The analogue question was particularly interesting because my immediate thought was, ‘oh, I’d just put it into Photoshop and create the layers,’ then we all laughed as that was also a digital solution! I think this shows how much it’s embedded in my practice now.
The others said they enjoyed the colours and the opportunity to read different things into the scrolls. They liked the interplay between old and new technologies. We also talked about the principles behind Abstract Expressionism and Rothko’s intention to evoke emotion. I am grateful to everyone for their participation. I felt the feedback was positive and engaged.
References:
Grusin, R., & Bolter, J. D. (2000). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA.
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