Jessica Warboys (b. 1977 Newport, Wales)
Rebecca Horn (1944 in Michelstadt)
Akira Kanayama (1924-2006, Japan)
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
Ahmed Elgammal of ArtRendex and Rutgers speaks about art and artificial intelligence at the Creative Tech Week Conference, May 11 2019.
Forces of nature. Jessica Warboys applies a pigment to the material and then leaves it on the shore for the water to wash colour through the material. I did about the same and left the varnishes in the open air. The snow froze in the soft varnish and dissolved the dry pigments. Apart from the number of paints, and its colours, what did we get?
Nature worked on the material by itself. But about the same Rauschenberg tried to show with his white works. Where dust and flies on canvas were part of this piece of art. It's like John Cage with his 4.33 piece. Everything that happens around us is part of this work. What I want to say, it is very logical if the material that falls into the water absorbs trace elements and acquires a different colour. Or the snowflakes will harden in the varnish and bubbles will form. It's like giving pencils to a monkey, or paints to an elephant. Animals are part of nature, like the ocean or the sea, and what do we get? We ask The Nature to draw something unpredictable? Or here we need to judge then the idea rather than execution?
Or another example is Machines. A person creates artificial algorithms in the form of robots, computer programs, high-tech devices, or, in my case, a washing machine. At first glance, the task of these machines is different. Some should wash rags, some should calculate mathematical formulas. But out of curiosity, a person can modify any computer for his tasks. This is how such machines appear as in Sun Yuan & Peng Yu case. Or for example, I tried to change the purpose of the washing machine, and turn it into an art instrument.
And what do we get? The material interacted with either nature or an artificial mechanism. And something worked out.
But what is strange here is that art critics will not discuss how the sea touched the canvas, good or bad. Or how Rebecca Horn's painting mechanism splattered all over the stairs at Harvard Institute. But critics will discuss the artist who brought the material, who chose the colour of the pigment, or the artist who designed the painting machine, or the artist who gave the idea.
In the end, it's always about the person. Any art is for man and created by man. A bit like God created man, and man created God. Therefore, for the purity of art, it is necessary to remove as many unnecessary objects as possible and leave only a person. And then, step by step, add a little bit of material and see what happens. And if the artist wants to give felt-tip pens to the monkey, and not draw on his own, then it is also ok.