Exhibition – Hallucination
Toowoomba Regional Gallery
3 April – 28 April | Rosalie Gallery – Goombungee
This exhibition is about my exploration of using a collaborative/self-appropriative method to incorporate imagery generated using AI technology into my traditional painting and sculptural art practices. I achieved this by merging my own previously created artworks with AI image generation models to create reference material for new 2D and 3D artworks. I looked at this project from the perspective of capturing my visual experience of working with AI, blending my internal mind space with that of the AI’s ‘blackbox’.
'Happy New Year’
Oil on canvas, 2024, 60 x 60 cm
At the turn of the year 2024 my life seemed once again to float before my eyes and I was done. In an effort to paint my current experience I sifted through images created using AI agent MidJourney. Using my usual process, I dissected a multitude of AI created reference images and pulled out the symbolic visuals that resonated with my mood. Part of this process typically involves using transparent layers in photoshop to scale and place the different visuals into a draft/reference composition I am happy with. Whilst in photoshop, I found the transparent layers themselves interesting and found that they were representative of the two very different directions my life could go in the new year. Am I looking forward to a year of promise and progress or another year of patience that would require me to center myself? It was my glimpse into the unknown, I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t real. This painting helped me to understand what is ‘is’, even when you don’t know what it is.
‘The cloud’
Oil on canvas, 2024, 90 x 60 cm
A visual representation of an off-site data storage facility or what we have all become familiar with as ‘the cloud’. I think the soft fluffy word cloud is an interesting way to describe something that is most likely an air-conditioned industrial warehouse of immense scale, where thousands of computers are running 24hrs to store our humanity via photographs, stories, text messages, academic papers, science experiments… everything. I envision this ‘cloud’ as a toddler learning about all aspects of our lives, floating amongst the clouds, taking in information and spitting it back out in little packets of data that travel from one point on the globe to another.
As with all the work in this exhibition AI generative technology was used as a tool in the creation of this work. Digital elements produced in a brainstorming session with MidJourney were pulled out and reconfigured into a Photoshopped collage that was then used as the source image for the resulting oil painting.
‘The traveller’
Oil on canvas, 2024, 40 x 50 cm
More and more I feel like the corner profit, standing at an intersection waving a sign saying, ‘the end is nigh’. I believe we are on the cusp of incredible technological advances that will change our world in a very short period of time and that humanity may not be prepared for it. However, whilst feeling existential angst over the speed at which technology is changing our world, I feel excitement and wonder at the new tools we have at our creative disposal. I feel like a traveler traversing new waters, making new discoveries, seeing things I haven’t seen or thought of before. I am interested in how AI mashes concepts, organic shapes, mechanical shapes and epic environments together.
In some ways I wonder if this time period is the calm before the storm.
‘My happy/unhappy place’
Oil on canvas, 2023, 60 x 70 cm
This oil painting is experimenting with the merging of my mind’s meditation place or ‘thinking space’ and that of the AI decision making processes, reasoning and interpretative capabilities.
When I think about my internal mind space I recall the visceral, visual environment that I create internally each time I meditate. I think of this perceived space as my happy place, a ‘studio Ghibli-like’ world of intense colour and wildflower fields that go on forever. In this painting I played with resource imagery created by AI Image generator MidJourney using my own artwork as prompts. Effectively creating an image that blends my own liminal mind space with distorted AI imagery.
‘Brainstorm’
Oil on canvas, 2023, 50 x 40 cm
This canvas is literally a visual representation of the idea of a brainstorm. The determination to think beyond one’s own reality. To imagine, remember, ruminate, muse, reflect and meditate…
This work is the only painting in this collection to include a hand drawn element as part of the composition. I feel it is important to show the hand in the process of creating these oil paintings as they were essentially ‘brainstormed’ digitally. It is a representation of my own experiences and ideas filtered through AI generative technology that has added external cultural references. This effect can be seen in the anime type /digital, hero like feel of the character, which may be indicative of the users that were using that particular AI Agent (In this case MidJourney v4) at the time I generated the source images. This is why I sometimes refer to using AI generative technology as tapping into the zeitgeist.
‘Imagine a colour you haven’t seen before’
Oil on canvas, 2023, 50 x 40 cm
This work is about questioning how we perceive our own experiences, for example:
Have you ever tried to imagine a colour you haven’t seen before?
In your visual memories do you have peripheral vision?
Do you see things in your mind, or do you hear, smell, taste and feel ideas and memories?
or perhaps you experience sound as colour?
Can you turn up the sound of the voice in your head or does your internal scream have the same volume as a whisper?
How we experience the world and record our perception of that experience is what I believe to be at the core of our humanity. By adding my own artwork, built from my perceptions and experiences, to be re-interpreted by an AI model, the imagery it creates is completely new, not something I had seen or experienced before, even though they contain distorted elements of my original work. This affords me the ability to paint something I have never seen or experienced before yet still can find a connection with.
‘The Internet of things’
Oil on canvas, 2024, 110 x 110 cm
Question asked Chat GPT: What is the Internet of things (IoT)?
“Imagine a world where everyday objects like your toaster, thermostat, and even your shoes can talk to each other and share information. That’s the Internet of Things (IoT)! It’s like giving everything around you a secret language so they can work together and make life easier. 🌟📡🏠”
Chat Gpt4 (31 March 2024)
This response is accurate, if not a little creepy. What does this actually mean? More and more, we are relying on technology to fill in the gaps of our everyday lives, to perform small tasks, such as turning lights, heating and music on and off, ordering groceries and driving our cars. It could be likened to padding or gum that sits between us and reality, to soften the real world and make the world an easier, friendlier place to live.
These three pieces ‘The internet of things’, ‘The future internet of things’ and ‘The internet of things without humanity’ question the cost of this cushioning or convenience. We have already been using technology as an extension of our minds since the invention of the smart phone. Our phones store our contacts, conversations, photographs, travel routes, favourite songs, notes, ideas and memories. The mobile phone is not only an extension of our own physicality, it is connected to the internet, which is what I equate to being connected to ‘everything, everywhere all at once’.
In this work I have imagined the Iot as a physical entity that hovers above a ‘Disney/Ghibli’ style village. The people living in the village are oblivious to the looming entity easing its way into their lives.
These works represent the dichotomy of my interest in new technologies. Upon hearing new developments, particularly in the creative industries, my first thought is horror followed closely by ‘when can I play with it’. I am not for or against new technology, it is progress. However, I think it is important to stand back and question our relationship with this new world of secret languages/technological entities working to make our lives easier.
‘The future internet of things’
Oil on canvas, 2024, 110 x 110 cm
This painting, ‘The future internet of things’ is the next phase in my imagined narrative of ‘The internet of things’, (IoT) where the bubblegum has now worked its way into the foundations of our ‘village’, the people can no longer separate themselves from the network, they are always connected virtually yet separated by physicality.
In our modern world, we have the convenience of working from home and having groceries and other goods delivered right to our doors. While this makes life more comfortable, it also means we interact less with others face-to-face. This shift raises questions about how technology might impact our connections with one another.
‘The internet of things without humanity’
Resin sculpture, 2024, 55 x 55 x 55 cm
The third piece in this ‘Internet of things’ narrative, is a 3D model that has been resin printed. It represents our little village as a bleached out shell that has had all its humanity sucked out of it. In the same way that colour has been stripped from our once vibrant and thriving coral reefs. Here the houses in the village have become a symbol of our physical bodies stripped of all our connection with others and with ourselves.
While my whimsical ‘IoT’ cartoons don’t necessarily depict the dystopian future I actually envision, I do think it’s crucial to initiate discussions about where that boundary lies. For example, emerging technology enables film studios to ‘clone’ an actor’s voice and appearance, potentially rendering actors obsolete. How does this single change impact the way humans weave stories? And when we tally up all these changes, how much of our humanity might we lose in the process?
This piece was my first exploration of using the 3D software Blender. I was very excited to be able to create an object virtually in a visual third-dimensional ‘space’ on my laptop. It had all the benefits of playing with a piece of clay while sitting in the loungeroom watching a movie, with no buckets of water or slippery clay insight. I will always want to play with mud however I will also want to push what I can create to include work that is not possible to create in a ceramic studio, such as clear resin printing. I will be playing in this space more in the future.
*Exhibition side note: Why did I leave the sides of my canvases messy with fingerprints?
Every piece in this exhibition was originally conceived using artificial intelligence (AI) generative technologies, and I felt compelled to demonstrate my physical involvement in their creation.
AI can churn out sets of print-ready images in a matter of minutes. It operates predictively, much like how predictive text and chatbot conversations work. However, it cannot ‘create art’. Art, in its essence, is a product of human creativity—a reflection of our thoughts, experiences, and perceptions. While AI-generated art may resemble artistic expression, it lacks the capacity for thought, experience, and perception that humans possess.
As an artist, I don’t merely generate digital images; I engage with my own unique experiences and perceptions. When I create a work, I physically apply paint to canvas, leaving behind marks that reveal the tangible traces of the creative process—something a computer image cannot convey.