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There is a wealth of information in our world today. This surplus is thanks to the everyday technology we use to enrich our lives. With a few taps on your smartphone or clicks on your computer keyboard, we are presented scientific advancements, athletic milestones, political developments, and dinner recipes, instantaneously, and from multiple sources around the world. In one sense, technology collapses time and space in order to deliver information to us. But, what purpose does this serve exactly? I am interested in using this abundance of information as a medium to depict the human experience and the systems that implicitly guide that experience.

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Software as Artwork, also known as SAAW tokens (or SaAw) on the Ethereum blockchain, is a collection of NFTs that represent a manifesto to bring artistic practices to contemporary software development.

The video, available in English and French, explains Software as Artwork using emerging text-to-speech, speech-to-text technologies, and custom software for graphics all while satirizing the state of end-user technology consumption.

Still Lifes Studies, also known as SLIFES tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, is a collection of NFTs that represent seamlessly looping videos created by a program I am developing. The program uses a seed word to generate a unique animation.

While coded entirely in JavaScript, the visual output is inspired by the practice of still life paintings. The title of each animation tags the version of the code and its seed phrase which are often obfuscated for privacy reasons.

In these studies many still frames come together to create the illusion of life.

︎ Lost Treasures Found, 2019

After a career in the coliseum Encolpius works toward an academic degree. Outside of class he yearns for the affection of his boyfriend Giton, the validation of his professor Agamemnon, and the collapse of his once friend and now arch rival Ascyltus. Encolpius, however, is time and again met with failure. His endeavors unravel throughout The Satyricon, written by Petronius in the late first century, in the most bizarre and hilarious ways. Traces of Encolpius’ trials can be seen today in the incredulous stories shared over social media. The reception of these stories, like the original reception of The Satyricon by Ancient Romans, are met with widespread amusement and engagement. This signals the timeless qualities of human emotions in society.  

Today, however, digital culture occupies our focus and pushes Encolpius into the shadows. We are not building off our predecessors so much as we are obscuring them. In an attempt to reverse this tendency, Lost Treasures Found offers contemporary access to the story of Encolpius. It presents The Satyricon unabridged and in its original Latin. It replaces key Latin words with their contemporary Emoji counterparts through a custom transcode function. With no prior understanding of Latin, dive into the text and catch glimpses of daily life, from thousands of years ago. The Latin literate are presented with a familiar story set against an unexpected, but appropriate modern backdrop. Ultimately, this book collapses two-thousand years of progress and exposes two distant cultures to each other.

︎ des Objets Reconnus, 2019

Transcoding is a technological phenomenon which can be used to connect different cultural subjects. This case is explored in Lost Treasures Found where Latin and Emojis become an unlikely match. On the other hand, artists like René Magritte, John Baldessari, and Jean-Michel Alberola connect subjects via visual juxtaposition. Through juxtaposition, Magritte compares clouds to boulders. Baldessari examines type’s relationship to color. And, Alberola superimposes fragments of figure and lyric to make whole forms. Through juxtaposition, these artists are able to reframe, question, and better understand their subject matter. Des Objets Reconnus takes this spirit of juxtaposition and combines it with the power of transcoding.

On the right side, hundreds of famous oil paintings cycle in and out. On the left are keywords perceived by an object recognition algorithm used by many of the top technology corporations in the world. As the keywords change, the computer distorts the oil painting to reveal the part of the painting that triggers hidden metadata. The methodical pace runs at one half of one percent the speed the computer takes to recognize objects in an image. This expanded view frames the computational process in terms conducive to human perception. In addition, the wispy motion of the paintings is directly tied to how uncertain the algorithm is. Lastly, a sonic layer matches predominant colors present in the painting to underscore the pace. Des Objets Reconnus transcodes oil paintings through object recognition in order to juxtapose representation and meaning. In this way, des Objets Reconnus questions our personal relationships with paintings to better understand this pervasive algorithm.