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Reliefs made from the landscape generated by an AI engaged in the task of perceiving the world. The surface shows the traces of millions of visual labelling procedures, made perceptible to a viewer in landscape form. Where the model fails to interpret what it sees correctly, a mountain is produced. These statistical-perceptual landscapes are then 3D CNC-carved into polyurethane. Some pieces are further worked into manually with an electrical drill. The surface is painted with acrylic and clear coat, making the artworks semi-reflective. 

Work in progress: A Reinforcement Learning AI agent learns to inhabit and move a quadruped body. The performance optimisation process takes several days and includes millions of steps, as the model progresses from incapability to competence. These behaviours are then transferred onto 3D scans of real people, which are ‘re-skinned’ with metal, stone and other materials. Following this, a second AI agent analyses the behavioural performance and re-orders movement according to abstract aesthetic goals. This results in the breakdown of performance - instead a disjointed and sometimes impossible sequence of body motion appears. The real-time dynamic artworks can run in perpetuity. 





A shared 3D relational space that connects people via the blockchain. Mass is a surveillance machine, recording every action its 300 owners take on the network and communicating them to the group through changes in the dynamic 3D compositions. Features are then introduced into the code which result in a failure to communicate events reliably within the network. The visual environment and its digital objects are processed to near breaking point. Functional design is superceded by communal presence.
More about Mass



‘Without their market, most NFTs would simply be digital art, like back when people still talked about computer art,
net art and new media art without the blockchain and everyone knew what was meant.
Without the blockchain and its market, MASS by James Bloom could not live.’

Anika Meier
Imagine NFTs Are Alive



Reliefs carved with a 3-axis CNC router into polyurethane model board. All the objects appearing in the works are taken from popular online 3D object libraries. The artworks mimic complex and opaque production processes used for the manufacturing of new and desirable aesthetic and artistic products through appropriation and refinement. Five artworks from this series were exhibited as part of a group show at Strouk Gallery, Paris.