The Imitation Game
Georgia Tooke - 29th May 2022
During my Vancouver day trip I did at the end of April, I saw four exhibitions. Two at the Vancouver Art Gallery and two at the Contemporary Art Gallery. The first one I saw and wrote about was the Yoko Ono ‘Growing Freedom’ show which occupied the first floor of the VAG, the second show, which I’ll be giving my notes on now, was located on the second floor.
When I arrived on the landing of the staircase I was greeted by a friendly gallery attendant, he excitedly guided me to this massive projection that had several floating words on the wall like GAMES, URBAN DESIGN, POP CULTURE etc all connected by lines. The gallery attendant told me to hold my hand out, palm down, hovering over this sensor, which I now controlled what was happening on the screen by just moving my hand in mid air. As I rolled over each word, it expanded and told me a few different examples of how Artificial Intelligence technology was being incorporated into basically every facet of our daily lives. This felt like an incredible way to start an exhibition on AI, this show was called “The Imitation Game: Visual Culture in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”. My interest was immediately piqued because I love art that explores life in the digital age; my absolute favourite exhibition ever was called “Digital Citizen - The Precarious Subject” at the Baltic in Newcastle. However, it quickly dwindled in the first quarter of the show. It began with a detailed history of AI, which was very text heavy and felt more museum-like than art gallery. Interspersed in there were monitors with excerpts of old movies that talked about a hypothetical AI. I had heard of these movies but had never seen them and honestly couldn’t be arsed to watch them now, I didn’t really think it was going to deepen my understanding in any meaningful way so I breezed past the first bit. Just as I was growing weary of the museum portion, I peaked my head into a darkened room where there was this approx 15’x15’x2’ trapezoidal plinth in the middle of the room. Resting on top was an unstretched canvas with ultramarine blue paint strokes gesturally flowing over it; lastly, what appeared to be the cause of the paint strokes: ten hemisphere–shaped robots sitting quietly awaiting instruction. On the back wall was a massive projection playing a video that appeared to be an aerial shot of the work I was now standing in front of, however this was it in action. The artist and her “swarm” of robots collaboratively working on the painting together. On the left and right walls were paintings of various sizes that the artist, Sougwen Chung, and her robots made together. What I found most intriguing were the two videos on the walls next to the door, where it showed Chung’s process a bit more in depth. Chung collects surveillance footage of public spaces, the data from this footage can be distilled down through algorithms to find out the velocity, direction, density and dwell time of how people are moving through various spaces. It takes this information and creates movement patterns for Chung’s robots to paint. I really appreciate a room like this to contain all the relevant info in a visual way for a viewer to understand the work. I think each part of Sougwen Chung’s installation was equally important.
The next section I meandered around, pausing at different works to look at and read their texts. Nothing really jumped until I finally walked counter clockwise around the perimeter of the gallery space, leaving me to look at the back wall. I saw two screens: the one on the left was a smaller square shaped screen that looked like live-feed security - similar to something you might see when you walk into a drugstore or department store, seeing yourself mirrored as you walk on and off the screen. Which reminds you that you are being watched. The screen on the right side was a vertical monitor which showed a red squiggly line with dots that rippled out, placed sporadically along the line. It took me a second to realize how these two screens connected, but then I saw as I moved towards the one on the left, the red line moved too. I was being tracked. I could see exactly how I had just moved through the room! If I stood in one spot for more than a couple seconds, a dot would appear. The longer I stood there, another circle would outline the dot and then another and another until I walked again and the line would follow me. I don’t know why but I found this so fascinating and entertaining!! When I read the gallery text, they mentioned something called “preference engines” which is a term I hadn’t heard of but something we are all very familiar with by now. It’s software that monitors our online activity so it can advertise us products, services, information all based on what we search, click on, the articles we read, the music we listen to etc etc. According to the text, galleries have, for the most part, been reluctant to use software like this to collect data on its visitors, to find out what they spend time on and how they move through the gallery. The VAG commissioned Creepers to do exactly that. They mentioned that they did not record or collect any of the data but merely showed what it could do. I’m so curious as to why more galleries don’t use this software, I would be morbidly fascinated to look at how people move through a space, how long they spend on a piece, what they take the time to read and what they breeze past.
My movement and dwell time through this gallery space tracked by Creepers.
It’s only now after writing about this exhibition that I put together the similarities between the experiences of Sougwen Chung’s collaborative robot paintings on the Creepers piece I was just talking about. There was a bunch of work between the two installations (I originally wrote about the works in the order I saw them but now that I’m editing I’m going to place them together). The red line that displayed my travel and dwell time in the space I was being tracked is exactly the data that Chung’s robots are processing and turning into painted lines. This was a fun realization I had while writing and reflecting! :)
Anyways, I’m going to try and rattle off a couple more works that stood out to me so we’re not reading this forever. That’s the problem with large galleries - there’s just so much to take in!!
One of my immediate faves: a monitor with a video of movies pre & post CGI. Ugh I honestly just can’t get enough of that. I’m so fascinated by CGI and the Uncanny Valley. While at the exhibition in Newcastle I mentioned earlier, I saw this work (Goodbye Uncanny Valley) by Alan Warburton which is available on Vimeo and would highly recommend checking out if you're interested in that kinda stuff!!!
I turned the corner and came across a work that I had just recently seen an art history TikTok account talking about. It’s always exciting to see something you saw online irl. Bina48 is one of the world's most advanced social robots. “Conversations with Bina48” by artist Stephanie Dinkins is a series of videos recording Dinkins asking questions to Bina48, this work examines how a human and a robot can build a relationship - discussing things like race, family, faith, robot civil rights, loneliness, knowledge and consciousness. What I find so fascinating about this project is how we hold a belief that tech is neutral, idealistic and objective, when in reality AI is coded and programmed by humans which of course embed their beliefs and biases, whether they intend to or not. These conversations shed light to that core programming and poke holes in the idealistic idea of unbiased programming. There’s no such thing. This is excellently illustrated by the Algorithmic Justice League. The AJL was formed in 2016 by Joy Buolanmwini, a computer scientist and digital activist. The exhibition text stated that the “[AJL] is leading a cultural movement towards equitable and accountable AI.” Beside the text was a TV monitor showing a short video called “The Coded Gaze: Unmasking Algorithmic Bias”, where Buolanmwini described a personal experience she had when she started her time at MIT, she started working with computer vision (facial recognition) and was confused when it wasn’t registering her face. It wasn’t until she put on a white mask that the software recognized her. I thought about my experience with facial recognition software, which upon first thought, was how I get into my phone; but then I wondered where else is this being used? In the video, they use examples of facial recognition software for apartment building security or CCTV security cameras that have falsely accused BIPOC people with crimes that they didn’t commit because the facial recognition didn’t register the correct darker features. These coded biases can have huge life threatening implications for marginalized people. What this film highlighted is how the people who create and roll out these softwares are a small group of typically white males. Whether we like it or not, and whether we realize it or not, AI is impacting our lives and that coding is politically charged and riddled with bias.
The last room I went into was a large, low-lit room with several massive glowing lightbox photographs, TV monitors and a grid of postcard-sized prints. This was a collection from a London-based artist named Scott Eaton. I feel like at this point in the gallery I was tired and hungry and genuinely thought about just walking through diagonally to the other door but then I saw this video that completely made me stop in my tracks. It looked like one of those videos where it’s a close shot of someone squeezing food colouring into water and you can see it balloon out, expand and mix with the water; but instead of food colouring it was a fleshy morphing of human bodies. I was transfixed by this, it was like human bodies were used as digital material or digital paint. Now that this artist’s work had thoroughly captured my attention, I slowly began to make my way around the room. The next piece I saw, I absolutely fell in love with. It was called “Humanity (Fall of the Damned)” 2019, it was a large-scale lightbox photograph that towered over me. It had the same feel as the last piece, but a still image this time. It felt biblical or maybe mythical would be a better word for it. Like all these bodies were floating up to the heavens or falling down into hell. Or maybe even just suspended between the two worlds. It reminded me of this children’s book my mom used to read to me and my brothers when we were kids, about this caterpillar that began climbing this tall pillar, covered in other caterpillars, all squishing, stepping over and crushing each other to try and reach the top even though no one knew what was up there. When you moved closer to the piece, you could see so many incredible details, of arms hanging onto legs, fingers deeply clutching hips and waists, faces buried into bends and crooks of another’s body. I think this might have been my favourite piece in the gallery.
The last work I saw was called “Caffeinated Diversions” 2018-2019. There was a large grid of postcard sized prints, each column had two of the same print side-by-side, one that was a grey 2D sketch of a cartoon-ish looking body and one that was a fleshy 3D version of the sketch. This was the point where I checked the exhibition text to find out how Scott Eaton was making these. Turns out he was working with what’s called an AI neural network. Eaton fed this neural network over 25,000 photographs of staged, well-lit human bodies and trained it to then only recognize and produce new images based on human bodies. These sketches I just mentioned illustrate that really well. Whatever design Eaton gives the “Bodies” neural network, it will create that design/sketch using only bodies.
Caffeinated Diversions 2018-2019 Scott Eaton
Oh my god!! We finally made it out! The Vancouver Art Gallery is frickin massive and I always forget that when I’m planning an art trip and want to hit multiple galleries in a day. Just like I always forget how long it takes me to travel to and fro Vic to Van and back to Vic again. As I ruminated on my day trip during my ferry ride home, I calculated that I spent a total of less than 4 hours in Vancouver proper and 7.5 hours of just travelling. Note to self: spread out my time in Vancouver (day trips are a little much) so I can spend more time in galleries without feeling tired and rushed. But overall, I’m glad I did it because seeing art when ur grumpy is better than seeing no art at all! (i guess lol)
Thank you SO much for reading!! This show is on until October 23, 2022 so if you’re in Vancouver before then I highly recommend checking it out! And if you’re going to look up any of the work I talked about, look at the Algorithmic Justice League and the activist work they are doing and how you can get involved!