Recursion
Sascha Pohflepp (DE)
custom-trained reccurent neural network, video, 2016, 2:00
A text created by a custom artificial intelligence system that had been given a wide variety of texts on humanity to learn, ranging from encyclopedic articles on our biology and sociality to works from psychology, philosophy and pop culture. It was then asked to author its own text, starting with the word “human”.
In the resulting video, an individual (Erika Ostrander) reads the synthetic mind’s inferences, in the process creating a feedback loop between the universal machines and ourselves; wondering whether – in the words of theorist Benjamin H. Bratton – “the real uncanny valley” might be one “in which we see ourselves through the eyes of an [artificial] other?”
Sascha Pohflepp (DE), born in 1978 in Cologne, is an artist and researcher whose work has been known to probe the role of technology in our efforts to understand and influence our environment. His interest extends across both historical aspects and visions of the future and his practice often involves collaboration with other artists and researchers, creating work on subjects ranging from synthetic biology and artificial intelligence to geopolitics and space exploration.
Notable exhibitions include “Talk To Me” at MoMA New York, “Hyperlinks” at the Art Institute of Chicago, “Micro Impact” at the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum Rotterdam, “Pre-History of the Image” at STUK Kunstencentrum Leuven, “Åzone Futures Market” at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York and “The House in the Sky” at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn.
He holds a diploma from The Berlin University of the Arts (UDK) and an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art (RCA) London.
He lives and works between Berlin and southern California where he is pursuing a PhD in art theory & practice at UC San Diego and teaches in the Visual Art Department’s speculative design major.
