The Dream Life of Data

2024

Most often language organizes the world in a functional way – while in the virtual world it’s data that makes things happen. But because data is a type of language it has the capacity to act otherwise in other realms. It can be playful, or spiritual, or poetic – at the same time it can embody a totally divergent way of looking at things.

I’ve constructed these images from visuals generated using text-to-image apps. The text I plug in is not readily parsed by AI algorithms so the results produced tend to the off-beat. I navigate intuitively to find a synthesis using surprise and recognition as guides. I’m lead by my material and I willingly entertain whatever accidents or artifacts present themselves during production.

Working this way I get to access an altered state which I experience as playful, poetic, mysterious, metaphoric, somewhat uncomfortable, maybe a bit spiritual but certainly a release from more customary modes. I feel The Dream Life of Data provides an escape from the tyranny of the instrumental into imaginary realms that show the possibility of seeing things differently.