Reliefs based on the statistical landscape generated by an AI engaged in the task of visual interpretation. The AI analyses a dataset of images in order to identify and differentiate between different people, animals and objects. The process the model employs as it goes about the task of image classification is captured in the artwork.
The landscape-like 3D graph seen on the surface has been generated from the model’s performance. Where the model is unsuccessful in interpreting images the loss is high, producing a mountain. Where it’s successful a valley appears. This landscape is a frozen moment-in-process in the task of visual perception. It is realised as a CNC-carved relief in polyurethane, an expressionist composition beneath a reflective surface layer.
It is said that the encroachment of machine learning into the classification of reality generates a landscape from which we are alienated - it fails to capture the world we live in on our own terms. The artwork makes visible a statistical landscape which is usually invisible, presenting it in a form where we can engage our own impulse to classify and see for ourselves.
The landscape-like 3D graph seen on the surface has been generated from the model’s performance. Where the model is unsuccessful in interpreting images the loss is high, producing a mountain. Where it’s successful a valley appears. This landscape is a frozen moment-in-process in the task of visual perception. It is realised as a CNC-carved relief in polyurethane, an expressionist composition beneath a reflective surface layer.
It is said that the encroachment of machine learning into the classification of reality generates a landscape from which we are alienated - it fails to capture the world we live in on our own terms. The artwork makes visible a statistical landscape which is usually invisible, presenting it in a form where we can engage our own impulse to classify and see for ourselves.
A self-learning AI agent learns to move a quadruped body in an ‘imagined’ 3D environment. The model is run using similar parameters to commercial robotics and military tests. The performance optimisation process takes several days and includes millions of steps, as the model progresses its virtual motor skills from incapability to competence.
The behaviours from these quadruped learning agents are then transposed onto 3D models of people, whose physical bodies have been scanned, reduced to an efficient file size and the rights sold online. These models are ‘re-skinned’ with metal, stone and various other artistic surface textures.
The combined objects and behavioural elements are wrapped in a custom-designed dynamic environment, in which a second Machine Learning model is turned inwards to analyse the motion. This simpler model breaks down the progression in performance and re-orders movement according to its own design goals, resulting in an idiosyncratic and sometimes impossible flow of behaviours in space.
The behaviours from these quadruped learning agents are then transposed onto 3D models of people, whose physical bodies have been scanned, reduced to an efficient file size and the rights sold online. These models are ‘re-skinned’ with metal, stone and various other artistic surface textures.
The combined objects and behavioural elements are wrapped in a custom-designed dynamic environment, in which a second Machine Learning model is turned inwards to analyse the motion. This simpler model breaks down the progression in performance and re-orders movement according to its own design goals, resulting in an idiosyncratic and sometimes impossible flow of behaviours in space.
A shared 3D relational space that lives on the blockchain. Everyone shares the same space, but it appears differently to each viewer and changes in unexpected ways over time as a result of the actions of participants.
Mass is a surveillance machine, recording every action its owners take on-chain and communicating them back to the group through changes in the dynamic 3D compositions. Bugs are then deliberately introduced into the code, resulting in a failure to communicate events reliably within the network.
The visual environment and its digital objects are also broken down, with functional design discarded in favour of presence.
The artwork brings a group of people together, but also distances them from each other. It’s a reimagining of our shared online environment, stripped of its agency to direct behaviour. An ever-changing relational structure that both reflects and upends the problematic nature of the network it exists within.
More about Mass
Mass is a surveillance machine, recording every action its owners take on-chain and communicating them back to the group through changes in the dynamic 3D compositions. Bugs are then deliberately introduced into the code, resulting in a failure to communicate events reliably within the network.
The visual environment and its digital objects are also broken down, with functional design discarded in favour of presence.
The artwork brings a group of people together, but also distances them from each other. It’s a reimagining of our shared online environment, stripped of its agency to direct behaviour. An ever-changing relational structure that both reflects and upends the problematic nature of the network it exists within.
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
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. The artworks are based on CAM 3D models constructed on screen.
All the objects appearing in the works are taken from popular online 3D object libraries. These commercially-available internet objects include user interface elements, digitally-constructed brushstrokes and 3D primitives.
The separate objects are subjected to multiple processes before being placed together in dimensional compositions and carved into monolithic physical artworks. Each piece is a single presence from a design of many parts.
The artworks mimic complex and opaque production processes used for the manufacturing of new and desirable aesthetic objects through appropriation and refinement.