Faces in the Darkness
In 2017 I created the first of a series projects where I gave my robot two simple instructions.
1: Imagine a human face and paint it.
2: Stop painting as soon as it recognized a face.
The algorithm was inspired by conversations I had with Harold Cohen, a pioneer in artificial creativity. He argued that AI didn’t truly create art—but merely filtered preexisting imagery, like Photoshop. But I had begun working with a new kind of neural network called GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) and noticed that they were “imagining” things very similar to how humans imagined. I shared this view with Cohen and tried to convince him that maybe machines could finally be creative.
Cohen passed in 2016 before I could finish our conversation, but his critiques ultimately sparked this series where I believe my robots began to truly be creative. The synthetically creative systems that emerged was an attempt to see the world through the eyes of AI.
The first set of portraits in this series consisted of 32 paintings that I ended up calling Emerging Faces.
Emerging Faces (32 11x14 inch Acrylic on Canvas Works)
Shortly after the first set, I was invited to an event during the Tribeca Film Festival called Views. It was a small private event where I was commissioned to create 128 similar works to be given away to the VIP attendees. These works were called The First Sparks of Artificial Creativity and painted on archival paper.
Almost all 128 were given away, though I kept a handful for myself. I also recorded each work as transferable assets on the BTC blockchain in 2018 and released them as NFTs for SuperRare’s first collection drop.
First Sparks of Artificial Creativity (128 11”x14” Acrylic on Archival Paper Works)
AI Imagined Portrait Painted by a Robot #2
Parallel to First Sparks and over the next several years I completed a handful of similar works (mostly 9”x12”) for commission and display various events and exhibitions around the world.
The most notable of these works was AI Imagined Portrait Painted by a Robot #2 (minted on SuperRare in 2018). This work was part of the winning entry that was awarded First Place in RobotArt 2018. In addition it was accepted into LACMAs permanent collection.
In 2023 a new version of this series was revealed during Bright Moments Tokyo that had a purely digital aspect called AI Imagined Faces. While all previous faces were physically painted until a face was recognized, this collection imagined both physical and digital faces.
AI Imagined Faces (100 Fully Onchain NFTs / 148 Physicals)
The 100 digital works were recorded 100% onchain and distributed as part of the Bright Moments Tokyo event in 2023. There were also 128 6”x6” canvases that were related to, but independent of the digital work. These were given to owners of the onchain NFTs, though not all were claimed and many remained in my possession.
While I do not plan to make anymore in this particular style, the series is not over and continues with the more complicated Reflection portraits and my newly developed metallic paintings.
Pindar