PAF Olomouc & SSG presents: Jacob Broms Engblom /Sticks and Stones/

Recently, Engblom has been intensively involved in artificial intelligence as a creative and artistic practice. One such work is also presented in the ScreenSaverGallery. It seems as if the patterns emerging from this abstract moving image had some clear rules and a logical development. They perhaps encouraged calm concentration and contemplation, as if they were revealing some sort of hidden, somehow mystical, scenarios. But actually, it is a recorded visualisation of an artificial intelligence’s (DCGAN neural network) training progression in ImageNet sets of “sticks” and “stones”. Bearing in mind Space Odyssey and other pop culture (or nature) references, sticks and stones are quite an enigmatic motif, since they have exceptional status within the evolution of human society. They are symbols of the progress of our predecessors towards humanity and technology; the use of basic tools and an extension of people’s bodies, but at the same time they are also natural structures beyond time and anthropomorphic perspectives.

This festival venue can be downloaded into your screensaver at screensaver.metazoa.org.

The exhibition is part of the official program of the Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art PAF Olomouc 2020 (Dec 3–6 2020). This year you can screen all the festival program on-line and for free at http://2020.pifpaf.cz/.

Join us especially for Pattern Extraction – talk by Jacob Broms Engblom on his recent work with AI, at 4 pm Friday Dec 4. Organized by PAF Festival. Join us at Zoom ( link here ) or watch stream at http://2020.pifpaf.cz/ and facebook/PAFOlomouc .