Kelly Luck
Strangeland 1 (excerpt)

FILE 2024 | Aesthetic Synthetics
International Electronic Language Festival
Kelly Luck – Strangeland 1 (excerpt) – United States

From a surrealist point of view, the main attraction of generative AI, for the artist, is its lack of memory. At any given moment, she only has the current frame and instructions on how to proceed, similar to free association in dreams. This work is part of a series of long-term environments designed to immerse the viewer in a constantly evolving and never-ending landscape, inviting relaxation and engagement.

Bio

As part of the first generation to grow up around computers, Kelly Luck quickly became fascinated with the creative possibilities of this new technology. Her journey has ranged from pixel art and graphic ‘hacks’ to the 90s demoscene, 2D and later 3D graphics, and now the modern tools of digital art. With the emergence of generative AI, it endlessly explores how technology continues to blur the line between imagination and reality.

Mirage Gstaad
“Mirage Gstaad by Doug Aitken uses the frequency of light to reflect the sublime Alpine landscape as part of a continually changing encounter in which land and sky, subject and object, inside and outside are in constant flux. Standing in contrast to the surrounding chalet’s the ranch-style structure suggests a latter-day architectural version of Manifest Destiny, the westward migration that began in Europe and finally settled in California. With every available surface clad in mirror it both absorbs and reflects the landscape around in such ways that the exterior will seemingly disappear just as the interior draws the viewer into a never-ending kaleidoscope of light and reflection.

The never-ending handover

perpetual storytelling apparatus
The “Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus” is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story by the use of patent drawings.The machine translates words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents – linked by over 22 million references – form the vocabulary. By using references to earlier patents, it is possible to find paths between arbitrary patents. They form a kind of subtext.New visual connections and narrative layers emerge through the interweaving of the story with the depiction of technical developments.The “Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus” is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story by the use of patent drawings.The machine translates words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents – linked by over 22 million references – form the vocabulary. By using references to earlier patents, it is possible to find paths between arbitrary patents. They form a kind of subtext. New visual connections and narrative layers emerge through the interweaving of the story with the depiction of technical developments.

françois xavier saint-georges
Assembled from chinese brushes and medical equipment, the low-tech automata creates ‘endless line’ ink paintings. Created by canadian designer François Xavier Saint Georges, ‘contraption’ is an autonomous painting machine, capable of creating a ‘never-ending line’ of paint. The low-tech device is composed of medical equipment like syringes and tubing, chinese brushes, and paper with an electric motor, that together continuously run a roll of paper along the wall, to be ‘painted’ upon by ink pumped into the set of brushes. Random variations in the ink’s consistency and viscosity at a given moment produce different effects on the paper, and different colours can be fed into the unit or layered on top of previous ‘paintings’. We will show you more projects from this guy, so if you like it you will see more about him. Enjoy it!