Title: Entropy ParchmentDimensions: 45 x 35 inch
Material: Hahnemuhle German Etching Paper
Over the course of a year I have input abstract, expressionist, and minimalistic art into two Artificial Neural Networks. The two networks are unique in their roles, with one assuming the function of a teacher, the other a student. Both receive the same information (artworks) and it is the student’s job to generate art which emulates the provided art samples and the teacher’s duty to its judge its quality; in other words, how well the student has performed.
The student generates boundless quantities of art. It comes down to the human’s artistic taste to curate the best from a given set. The abstract image above is chosen out of thousands for its canvas like texture and the soothing aspect of its neutral colors. Teetering between the organic quality of a hand-made work and the appeal of digital media.
In my art, I am interested in highlighting the consequence of the simulation hypothesis, outlined below, to creativity.
Simulation Hypothesis
----------------------
Ever since Platos cave, humanity debates whether what we perceive as reality is indeed real or - simulated.
Descartes was the first who explicitly posed the simulation question. In his thought experiment he imagines that an evil demon of “"utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.”
Most recently Nils Bostrom argued that if we believe that our civilization will one day run many sophisticated simulations concerning its ancestors, then we’re probably in an ancestor simulation right now.
Since simulations can be nested, whether we live in a simulation or not is unprovable since any evidence that is directly observed could be from another simulation itself. And that is good so, one can argue, since a simulated population who knows that they are simulated would induce a bias to the experiment, thus render it uninteresting and the simulation, i.e., our universe would be turned off.
The student generates boundless quantities of art. It comes down to the human’s artistic taste to curate the best from a given set. The abstract image above is chosen out of thousands for its canvas like texture and the soothing aspect of its neutral colors. Teetering between the organic quality of a hand-made work and the appeal of digital media.
In my art, I am interested in highlighting the consequence of the simulation hypothesis, outlined below, to creativity.
Simulation Hypothesis
----------------------
Ever since Platos cave, humanity debates whether what we perceive as reality is indeed real or - simulated.
Descartes was the first who explicitly posed the simulation question. In his thought experiment he imagines that an evil demon of “"utmost power and cunning has employed all his energies in order to deceive me.”
Most recently Nils Bostrom argued that if we believe that our civilization will one day run many sophisticated simulations concerning its ancestors, then we’re probably in an ancestor simulation right now.
Since simulations can be nested, whether we live in a simulation or not is unprovable since any evidence that is directly observed could be from another simulation itself. And that is good so, one can argue, since a simulated population who knows that they are simulated would induce a bias to the experiment, thus render it uninteresting and the simulation, i.e., our universe would be turned off.
2019 Ivo Vigan - Brooklyn, NY ivo.vigan@gmail.com