Dandelions
AI / machine learning generated images. 2020.
These images were created by training the machine on photographs I took of dandelions at the moment of their brief transition from yellow flower to white seed head. The yellow flower petals, drying-up, barely there any more. The seeds not quite fully formed, but beginning to assert themselves. All so delicate, but doing exactly what they were designed to do – disperse themselves.
The resulting works exist in their own liminal space, neither purely photographic nor entirely abstract, holding both realistic interpretations of this transition and machine-hewn geometric patterns within the same frame. Like all works in this series, nothing that emerges is accurate, but the machine’s interpretation of this delicate threshold produces luminous combinations that seem to hover between states.
Perhaps this is a metaphor for our current moment – a fragile world blowing apart, but ready with the seeds for a new future.
This essay accompanied the solo exhibition “Liminal” at Hawk + Hive, Andes, NY, USA.
Manipulations
These dandelion images have been further manipulated with custom code. By manipulating the machine-created images I seek to reveal that which is not visible to us, but may be apparent, perhaps even obvious, to the machine. The manipulation process pushes beyond what the AI originally generated, uncovering layers of information that exist within the data but remain hidden from human perception.
Exhibition View
Related Work
Learning Nature • Winter Woods • Cloud Canyon - AI / machine learning generated images and videos
Little AI - AI / Machine learning sculpture
Darns - Manipulated and stitched AI / machine learning generated images
