My work connects with machines along several different circuits; one might say I am sufficiently wired. My hybrid creatures and composite figures grow out of the traditions of graphic image-making; my objects and light objects are assembled from the discarded components of technological media—from technological fossils, in effect; while in my long-running series Manipulated Memories, I use artificial intelligence to reshape a photorealistic visual world. Sometimes I build the machine into the image, sometimes I construct an object from the machine’s remains, and sometimes I turn machine vision itself into an instrument of memory. At times I cobble the contraption together; at others, the machine assembles the image. For the time being, we accept joint responsibility for the result.
Take, for example, a few vegetables and plants. Scan them on a flatbed scanner or enlarge them under a microscope, then mix in a handful of mechanical and electronic components, seasoning occasionally with a few suitably fine-tuned generative algorithms. If the resulting hybrid creature begins to function, it is probably part of an imaginary evolution in which biological and technological forms can no longer be told apart. If it does not function, wait, then inspect the original roots. The wires can wait.
I am drawn to the visual language of automata because art and technology are fused within the same mechanism. Even to me, it is not entirely clear whether these images show plants turning into machines, machines growing like plants, or the rudimentary bodies of an unknown intelligence emerging somewhere between the two.
