The Murmurations series produced by Benoît Martinez and Pascal Lefort is the first of a collaboration between the two artists since they got back together, they forged their experience in contemporary art with the pioneering French collective Kolkoz.
Although it is not visible at first glance, apart from the spectacular dimension of the “paintings” presented, the Murmurations series benefits from a creative device that categorizes it in a radical way compared to a conventional work of plastic art. For the creation of their images, Martinez & Lefort use a powerful microprocessors (GPU) from a latest generation of computers. Constituted as a "neural network" (a generative adversarial network or Generative Adversarial Network or GAN), the machine produces a "generative art" carried out in a completely autonomous way from a "digital noise" constituted from a base of data guided by the selections of the artists.
In 1990, Kolkoz was one of the first collectives of artists to embrace new technologies related to video games through hacking.
whose young age they shared, before he imposed his stature as an art dealer internationally. It is on the momentum of this familiarity with computer processing that Murmurations builds its substance, Martinez & Lefort are taking up the thread of their personal creation in parallel with their work as artistic director and technological supervisor for large companies in the gaming industry.
This “digital noise” (“murmuration” in English) gives its title to the series of works. The processor of the machine that designed it evolves and builds its production like a cloud of migrating starlings traces flying in an unpredictable way according to air currents and the threats of possible predators (this last phenomenon is also reflected by the term “murmuration” ).
“Whispering is how the machine works, but also our brain, through progressive connections and association of ideas” specify the creators.
The ex machina image is conditioned by predefined artistic choices but nevertheless contains a great deal of aesthetic randomness:
The computer obeys the injunctions of two “mentors” who decide on the subject of the images selected, the parameters to be coordinated but do not strictly control the final result.
"every time the computer produces a result , we ask it to improve it and, for thousands of iterations. In a way, we let the machine drift until we arrive at a final image, which benefits from a real aesthetic structure, because it is governed by the plastic rules set at the start. It's ultimately about assembling aesthetic elements on a completely arbitrary and abstract principle."
The machine creates these images, it controls the creative process from start to finish: it is the main actor in the production of the work. This combines aesthetic homogeneity (the mix of images is totally under control, pixel by pixel) and artistic improbability, eliminating the idea of compromise or good taste that humans would be able to induce.
“ We are, within this experiment, in what we call
This one will perform stains in perfect unconsciousness, produce shapes without knowing exactly what it is doing. By contemplating the result, we try to produce meaning from these images but there isn’t really any. This is where the process meets Surrealism, there is no intention or truth in our works, only questions. It is more about the observer who gives meaning through his own projections than the machine that produces it”.
For the series of works presented, the "basic material" of Martinez and Lefort is taken from 19th century paintings which undergo mixtures and alterations, making them unrecognizable even if, here, we recognize a representative of firefighter art and there, Delacroix. "We love this fusion of Neo-Classicism and Surrealism says the duo. The digitally distorted shapes result in a mesmerizing result. It is as if we had awakened old artists to subject them to psychedelic experiments”. The various paintings in Murmurations (particularly Inferno and The Gift) are characterized by a very formal, academic approach. The viewer initially has the impression of understanding these images, which are highly referenced, before changing their minds: when they look closer, nothing obvious remains. The more we look, the less we grasp what is happening. The image sends us back to the understanding we have of it, provoking a mirror effect, an irresistible introspection.
The Murmurations series is the first of a recently reactivated collaboration between the two artists, who forged their experience in contemporary art with the pioneering French collective Kolkoz.
Powered by
Sign up to stay informed about gallery news and exclusive curated drops.
