How Many Drops in An Ocean Can AI Handle? - Urban ShortCut - Изкуство и свързаност

„How Many Drops in An Ocean Can AI Handle? | Mateusz Pecyna“

Mateusz Pecyna’s audiovisual installation “HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?”, can be described as an interaction-based intermedia project. At first glance – a simple table with three water-filled aquariums – distance sensors submerged into the water, facing up at the ceiling. We acknowledge short instructions placed at very edge of the tabletop, then looking to the right of us we notice a video playing and its source – a projector. Audio and some additional visual elements that we later connect with the main theme – the image of water, the image of the unknown motion – an overall appealing presentation, although limited at the perimeter of the exhibition hall.

Through the lens of the here implemented metamodernistic approach, as we try to decipher exactly “how many drops can AI handle”, we can’t stop wondering what we can reimagine and experiment with while “playing” with AI. And to paraphrase – is there something more – the idea of “generating” images, on one hand, and the idea of “controlling” an existing image through the means of AI, at the other. The question can be formulated as such: what can AI offer, other than exploring the already eroded filed of the mass image that is fueling the so called “generative software” itself? What we can look forward to, as a “remnant”, surprisingly “close answer” to this overly “picked at” question is actually – what about “morphing” and “adapting” the aura of an image to a series of motions – basically the core of Pecyna’s work? Mere parameters that the beholder can influence – and therefor – to indirectly “control” the aura through the means of AI, although is it possible to control the currents in the salty ocean? The work of M. Pecyna – “HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?” is a showcase of an overall positive practice – a symbiosis between the usage of AI and the “freedom” of the artistic approach. The only downside – the decided-on presentation method is inclined towards the visual “interface”. Our attention is overtaken by the videos playing and the audio background, a few steps backwards and we would have missed the core connecting element – the motion sensors tracking and separating deliberate interaction from unvoluntary movement. The author’s description is as follows: “The work is an interactive installation in which the viewer can confront the real-time operation of a neural network generating photos of water surfaces (sea, ocean)… Using this interface, the viewer participates in the process of generating images by moving their hands closer and further away from the water surface in each tank, which directly affects the parameters and speed of creating subsequent images. The aim of this installation is to make the viewer think about the nature of digital reality, anticipating the development of systems that will increasingly imitate and replace physical reality.” And again – the core element – or what sticks the whole concept together is the intriguing approach towards the viewer-installation interaction – a series of motions – triggering a sudden change in the exhibited images.

As described by Walter Benjamin – “the aura” – we can simply acknowledge as a “superposition” between – a state of a replacement of the “unique manifestation”, or the connecting line that goes through series of mass generated images. The artist’s approach within the concepts of “HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?” is at play with the described complexity matter of artificially generated images. The pictures used through the exhibited visual material are taken from…well nature, as real as the water and the camera taking the photo – The algorithm was trained with nearly a thousand photographs from the author’s own archive. The use of AI here is suppressed to a tool capturing motion, registering input, although still capable of connecting and multiplying already existing images, as commonly as AI’s do. Even though, by “multiplying” we suspect “mashing” images together, it’s not simple as that. However we choose to describe it, the reasoning behind our interest is inseparable from the captivating nature of the images shown, the images generated– a shared aura, a shared motion… As of how we use AI, how we choose to implement it, we could capture, multiply, connect as “synesthesia” – “complementary” sensory experiences as controlled parameters echoing through the motion, through the “body” itself.

Going back to the reasonably persistent question – “what exactly is an image?”: In the words of Hito Steyerl, “The poor image tends toward abstraction: it is a visual idea in its creation.”^[1] What is the difference between a “non-qualitative” (poor) and a “qualitative” image? One, the “object” of the media, “transmitted as bait”; “index”; ” a reminder of its former visual self”; “tending towards abstraction”^[2] and the other (qualitative) belonging to photography, created and transmitted in another way, existing in the “class groups of images”^[3] and with “assigned value”. Recreating, changing, removing an image from a given category in which it is located is possible thanks to our conscious awareness of the image – such as “what” followed by “how”,”[4]or understanding it as an event on its own. And from here, to re-question and re-answer the given formulae – “what” is an image, “how” is an image…and so on”. Adding the idea of Mateusz Pecyna’s for deliberately connecting the motion of the body (the someone watching, and here we equalize to – the someone moving) to the speed of generating images, or the “quality of the image”, we get even deeper into the vastly unexplored “ocean” of droplets. The second part of the installation – a 10’ 06” video produced trough the means of ChatGPT 4.0, StyleGAN3, Deforum Stable Diffusion, YOLOv5, synthesia.ai and audio by Asia Szczęsnowicz from her album titled Sea Life – Pecyna describes as: “The main projection is a hallucination of a future in which the boundaries between natural and artificial have become unrecognizable. The collage nature of interwoven found-footage images, elements generated by AI algorithms and real ocean recordings creates a non-linear and multi-threaded story about a world in which artificial intelligence has taken full control, replacing humanity’s natural habitat with a digital universe. An important point of reference in this project is the Blue Humanities, which departs from the anthropocentric perspective focusing on humans and their activities. Instead, it shifts attention towards the seas and oceans, treating reality as a network of relationships in one ecosystem shared by various entities (social, cultural, technological or natural).” In addition to Steyerl’s words – we can only ask – what is the future of our approach towards the “image” – what is to follow the idea of “loosing” control in our “renewal”? Although “threatening”, this idea isn’t new. W. Benjamin successfully predicted the motion of the overall overtaking technical reproducibility of the “artwork”. Even though the current “situation” is simply too vast – as AI is being “introduced” as an “extension to humanity” – we need to explore and possibly try to predict the “motions” to follow.

^[1] Steyerl, Hito. “In Defense of the Poor Image.” // e-flux journal, no. 10, Nov. 2009, p. 1.

^[2] p.1.

^[3] p.6.

[4] Enchev M., Dimitrova M. Creativity of Social Groups. The Method of Morphological Analysis and Its Application in The Experiment “Metamorph. Chain Of Changes”, Visual Studies, journal, University press of VTU, 3/2022, DOI:10.54664/UQAP3364

“HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?” is an interesting adaptation on the motion of coherent and simultaneous relation between the sensory “now-here” present and the movement of our bodies. Even though – not instinctively “noticed interaction” between us and the environment of the exhibition – a few minutes is all it takes to partake in the superposition of analog and digital realities offered by Pecyna.

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Where to see “HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?”:
We stumbled upon the intriguing work of Mateusz Pecyna in the “Prime Time” exposition – an artistic initiative that has been carried out by the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland for over 20 years. And usually consisting of a jury-selected bunch of the best diplomas of the year. The edition we visited – located at the Miejska Galeria Sztuki, Łódź, Poland. March, 2024 Pecyna was award by the LodzArte foundation and mention in the “main category” of awards for his participation with this project.

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Elements of “HOW MANY DROPS IN AN OCEAN CAN AI HANDLE ?” have been presented the main exhibition during OFF Bratislava Festival and during the exhibition titled “Interspace” at WY gallery in Łódź.

About the author:
Mateusz Pecyna (b. 1999) is a transdisciplinary artist exploring the relationship between nature and culture through new media. Currently studying a master’s degree at the Faculty of Photography and Multimedia of the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź, Poland.

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