Surpassing the Turing Test…
Surpassing the Turing Test - 2023
Silkscreen on vellum, frosted and clear mylar, bound with thread.
12 x 15”, 18 pages.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning are quickly becoming a new means by which knowledge is spread. Surpassing public understanding, we lack the legal frameworks, regulations, safeguards, and standards to navigate this new technology. The coming possibility of fabricated imagery will fundamentally change how we construct knowledge.
Approached through a historical correlation, Surpassing the Turing Test reflects upon the integration of AI technology as a tool for the spread of knowledge. My work contrasts AI with earlier technologies, such as the printing press, which play a role in the construction and distribution of knowledge. My work reflects upon the complexities of dissemination in the face of rapid advancements in AI generation technology.
Visually, my project incorporates 15th and 16th century handwritten manuscripts, early printed texts with moveable type, and images of books photographed from the University of Calgary’s Rare Books Collection. These images are combined with AI generated imagery (neural images), visual diagrams, and binary code which attempt to describe the complexities of how AI functions. The book is built up through multiple layers of silkscreen printing, increasing in complexity as one moves through the book. Images are printed on vellum and plastic, their transparency allowing pages to interact with and build upon each other. Through the progression of the book, I want to leave viewers with the question; how will we navigate the overwhelming impact that AI presents to us and our future?
Still-Life with Peeters’ Flowers, a Normal Photo Album, Women’s Cookbooks, a Sexy Barbie, Misogyny, and a Birthday Ribbon.
Still-Life with Peeters’ Flowers, a Normal Photo Album, Women’s Cookbooks, a Sexy Barbie, Misogyny, and a Birthday Ribbon - 2021
Coloured pencil on paper
35 x 28”
The objects we carry with us have meaning within them: they prompt our stories, jog our memories, remind us of what was forgotten. They reveal our personal histories in a way that words can’t quite capture. My coloured pencil drawings reflect upon the relationship between objects, memory, and the seemingly ‘fixed reality’ of a photograph. Existing in the realm of something “not-quite” photographic, my drawings are grounded in photo-realistic representation but are distorted through composition, scale, and material-handling. I want my work to prompt contemplation over the objects that carry personal and societal meaning, and how that meaning impacts our identity.
Still-Life with Peeters’ Flowers, a Normal Photo Album, Women’s Cookbooks, a Sexy Barbie, Misogyny, and a Birthday Ribbon explores multiple representations of women in visual form. This visual representation influences our lives, from the media we consume down to the types of toys we played with as children. Objects from my own childhood populate the scene, intermingled with advertisements and paintings that together create an imagined female identity.
The combination of childhood objects, 70’s adverts, art history references, and allusions to time questions the role innocence plays in our transition into adulthood. I wanted to reflect on how innocence can mask subliminal messaging. I wanted to think about the place in between innocence and sex appeal that women have been made to occupy, and the fine line between them in the lens of visual culture.