AI generated images animated to fade from one to another using Adobe Photoshop.

Analogous connections to one's own fingerprint arose in working with stone/rope in the exploration of the self kneaded with matter in Cogito Petrisséur. I explored these connections further in the AI app "Imagine" (Vyro, n.d.). With the help of this app, 2 photos are merged together, based on concepts generated by AI from the photos. This intuitive experiment gave an exciting visual fusion of expressions, where ideas around human matter fuse with rotting tree matter, through a found piece of wood, looking like a torso or a hand.

Close-up photo of my finger print and found piece of wood.

AI generated fusions between fingerprint and wood.

According to Søyland (Søyland,2021), the understanding of virtual impressions depends on previous bodily experiences. The AI images can therefore seem strangely familiar. It may take time before one realizes that these expressions do not belong to our known material reality. Based on Harper's (Harper, 2015) comfort breaker strategy, I play here with the recipient's connotations, something is familiar, but they do not quite get the hang of this hodgepodge of stories connected by AI. This can add a new layer to one's own connections fused with a virtual materiality.

I find this way of working with AI fruitful, where ideas and feelings from my lived experience fuse with AIs interpretation of the imagery. AI becomes then not just a tool but also a dialogue partner, helping me explore and familiarize with something ineffable from my own life experience. As Søyland describe how understanding of virtual impressions depends on previous bodily experiences, it is interesting to see how AI interprets my artistic interpretations and representations from these photos, not from its own bodily experience, which it doesn’t have, but from information it has learnt from, fed to it by us in the form of images, video and text. In a way, i give AI my own bodily experiences, for it to knead and shape into its own visual interpretations.

Sources:

Harper, K. (2015) Æstetisk bæredygtighed. Samfundslitteratur.DK

Søyland, L. (2021). Grasping materialities: Making sense through explorative touch interactions with materials and digital technologies (Doktorgradsavhandling, Universitetet I Sør-Øst Norge). USN Open Archive. https://hdl.handle.net/11250/2756969

Vyro (n.d.). Imagine (1) [AI art generator]. Google store. Retrieved 2. April 2023 from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.vyroai.aiart&hl=en&gl=US

Cogito Petrisséur-AI

Sources:

Natura naturans

“Cogito Petrisséur”