Meta.Morf 2018 – A Beautiful Accident
JAMES BRIDLE (UK) – Trondheim Art museum – Gråmølna, March 8 – May 6, 2018
ACTIVATIONS / AUTONOMOUS TRAP 001 / GRADIENT ASCENT
Activation 01 – 05 / Autonomous Trap 001 / Gradient Ascent
Prints / Video. Courtesy: James Bridle | NOME Gallery Berlin
James Bridle investigates how contemporary technologies of prediction and automation are explored as they settle into our everyday lives. Taking as its central subject, the self-driving car, the work tests the limits of human knowing and machine perception, strategise modes of resistance to algorithmic regimes, and devise new myths and poetic possibilities for an age of computation.
The Activations series are mapping the activation of layers in a neural network designed for driving an autonomous vehicle. Starting from the view of the road ahead, captured by the car’s camera, the images in the series slowly break down into significant and latterly illegible data, as the operation of the machine’s intelligence becomes less and less correspondent to human understanding.
The Activations series is one output from a body of work researching the design and development of a self-driving car. Also included is an activation of the network based not on the road ahead, but on the clouds over Mount Parnassus, where the vehicle was developed and tested.
Gradient Ascent
(Single channel digital video, 12:00, 2017)
The film Gradient Ascent follows a drive by a self-driving car up Mount Parnassus in Greece: the classical home of the Muses and thus art and knowledge. The journey is accompanied by a narrative on mythology and technological progress inspired by René Daumal’s surrealist novel Mount Analogue (1952).
Activations
(Ditone Archival Pigment Print, 2017)
Activations is a series of prints mapping the activation of layers in a neural network designed for driving an autonomous vehicle. Starting from the view of the road ahead captured by the car’s camera, the images in the series slowly break down into significant and latterly illegible data, as the operation of the machine’s intelligence becomes less and less correspondent to human understanding.
The Activations series is an output from a body of work researching the design and development of a self-driving car. Also included is an activation of the network based not on the road ahead, but on the clouds over Mount Parnassus, where the vehicle was developed and tested.
Autonomous Trap 001
(Ditone Archival Pigment Print / Video, 2017)
Ground markings to trap autonomous vehicles using “no entry” and other glyphs.
Performance of a salt circle trap, Mount Parnassus, 14/3/17.
Photo: Steve Forest, Workers’ Photos
steve@workersphotos.org
http://workersphotos.photoshelter.com
James Bridle is a British artist and writer living in Athens, Greece. His artworks and installations have been exhibited in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia, and have been viewed by hundreds of thousands visitors online. He has been commissioned by organisations including the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Barbican, Artangel, the Oslo Architecture Triennale, the Istanbul Design Biennial, and been honoured by Ars Electronica, the Japan Media Arts Festival, and the Design Museum, London. His writing on literature, culture and networks has appeared in magazines and newspapers including Frieze, Wired, Domus, Cabinet, the Atlantic, the New Statesman, and many others, in print and online, and he has written a regular column for the Observer. His formulation of the New Aesthetic research project has spurred debate and creative work across multiple disciplines, and continues to inspire critical and artistic responses. He lectures regularly on radio, at conferences, universities, and other events, including SXSW, Lift, the Global Art Forum, Re:Publica and TED. He was been a resident at Lighthouse, Brighton, the White Building, London, and Eyebeam, New York, and an Adjunct Professor on the Interactive Telecommunications Programme at New York University.