What Androids Dream No. 147
#MPOpenSea
This is another image that you need to take some time to appreciate. There is a lot going on here. In the 1980’s I discovered William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels. I tried to imagine what the cyberspace that he described would look like. This comes very close to my imagination.
I don’t usually explain too much about my artwork as I like to let each viewer find their own stories in it, but I think this piece needs a little context, a kind of skeleton for the viewer to flesh out with her own stories.
The theme of this piece is about crypto currency eating the current financial systems alive. It also has elements of the dystopian, cyberpunk imagery of the movie Blade Runner as well as a homage to glitch art and DeepDream art movements. The poem is a tribute to the semi-asemic Lewis Carroll poem Jabberwocky.
A Snark and Gormly Night
It was a snark and gormly night in South Paw The flippers were flim and floral Mutant worms gobbled the ‘scrapers raw Bitcoin traders draped their ‘chains in spamdarol.
Miksang muggers prowled the gormly streets The hapless ‘zens clutched their wallets and keys The red ‘scrapers all lit up like fiery treats Drew fungely funds from hedge bettor fleas.
The centaur couldn’t hold and folded and spent It’s fortune all floggled and spread To the ten directions and couldn’t cover the rent The floozles cheered and franged the town red.
It was a snark and gormly night in South Paw The flippers were flim and floral Mutant worms gobbled the ‘scrapers raw Bitcoin traders draped their ‘chains in spamdarol.
There are two sci-fi novels that, in addition to William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels, I would like to recommend to go with this painting. The first is Queen City Jazz by Kathleen Goonan https://amzn.to/2KNgKtb. The second is Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge https://amzn.to/2Zhn5F1
About the Android’s Dream Series
Formatted for 8K UHD screens, this series was created by collaborating with the artificial intelligence at the heart of the DeepDream project. I input some of my completely abstract images to the software to see what patterns the AI would find in them. The results are the series that I call What Androids Dream. A sort of homage to Philip K Dick, the series anticipates the coming Singularity when even artists may be superseded by machine superintelligence.
Just as photography inspired the cubists and abstract expressionists, what will art generating, super intelligent machines inspire? Perhaps a collaboration between man and machine to find that perfect image?
I find the alien creatures that the AI “finds” to be strangely endearing, like the “hopeful monsters” of the Cambrian explosion — perhaps even an electric sheep or two for Philip K Dick’s android’s private amusement. For me, the images create a mental atmosphere of sci-fi, psychedelic surrealism filled with strange, dreamlike stories.
There seem to be many stories going on in each image — stories that are private and unique to each viewer, stories that are unique to each viewing.
