Faces of Machine (2022-)

Machines powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) permeate our world, heralding both progress and challenges. They help diagnose and treat our maladies, but also manipulate the products we buy and the information we consume. Algorithms decide who gets hired and fired, and assist legal authorities in reaching verdicts, offering a veneer of impartiality while provoking apprehensions of automated prejudice. As chatbots assume roles as lovers and counselors, concerns for human job security grow. In the face of such omnipotence, some individuals begin to idolize these synthetic entities, while others lament the impending end of the world.

‘Faces of Machine’ is a series of paintings that delve into the essence of intelligent machines and the emotions they elicit within us—ranging from trepidation and unease to curiosity, hope, affection, awe and veneration. The paintings range from portraits that depict infancy and child-like naivité, to AI’s adolescence as suggested by the ability to produce complex emotions, to its engagement with social structures like religion and the law.

The creative process behind ‘Faces of Machine’ involves a collaboration with AI-based image synthesis models, incorporating the machine's self-portrayal and examining the increasingly blurred boundary between human and machine in artistic expression. The ephemeral nature of this technological moment is contrasted with the tangible and enduring medium of oil paint.

[More information can be found in the ‘Faces of Machines’ exhibition publication.]