META BODIES
In her work META BODIES Ivonne Thein reflect the present body images of a digital culture that is currently undergoing fundamental change due to extensive technologization. In recent years, the use of automated, non-human recordings and artificial intelligence (AI) has placed the question of the problem of imitating nature and thus the relationship between art, technology and the body at the center of artistic discourses. Today, new technologies profoundly shape both the physical body and its virtual representations in the visual culture of our time. What evidence do the abstract body landscapes that Ivonne Thein generated in cooperation with an AI provide us with? Fragmented body images that both fascinate and unsettle us through their surreal syntheses and digital abstractions.
Ivonne Thein first trained an AI with stock photos of various body images. (Re-)combination, mutation and selection of forms then take place automatically in the deep layers of the artificial neural network, which the artist uses as a non-human collaborator in the further pictorial process. The AI mimics role models and simulates creativity, which was previously considered intelligent activity and outstanding human ability. In the end, the body images generated by the AI in the exhibition space are intrusively close to us, as they no longer remain purely data sets on projections as a video loop, but are also substantiated by the artist as silicone skin objects in the real space of the exhibition. In doing so, they not only objectify the human body as raw material for manipulation and modeling of any kind, but also question the new relationship between the forms of nature, their pictorial imitation and the technical artistic forms of our time.
Text: Pamela C.Scorzin