image machine / machine image in Berlin

Rosemary Lee’s exhibition project image machine / machine image examines the automation of image processes, sharing artistic authorship with machines. Technologies such as digital photography and machine learning have reshaped aesthetics, but also the possibilities of what an image can be and can do. Inspired by the quote, ”The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” by Sol Lewitt, this project looks at parallels between conceptual art and cybernetics. Early cyberneticians envisioned biocomputers which could be used to automate conceptual tasks, which has been actualised, albeit in different form, through artificial intelligence. The large-scale automation of image production through the use of machine learning, has had the effect of embedding algorithmic processes into the image-plane, while also obscuring them from view. While the procedural nature of digital images is commonplace, it brings with it an inescapable opacity at the same time. These themes are explored through a series of drawings and an installation in the gallery space. The drawings work with the idea of the image as a process, the performance of a set of instructions. Working with the latent aspects of images as coming from the artist’s mind and articulated or expressed through the body, the drawings explore different kinds of mechanical programs, interpreting a set of procedures into visual outcomes.