Ashley Hi, Cable Imgs, 2022. GAN-produced images, vinyl stickers. 232.5 cm x 313.5 cm; 60 x 60 cm each. Installation view, Bad Imitation, curated by Berny Tan and Daniel Chong, at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, Singapore, 2022. Courtesy of the curators and the artist. Photo by Marvin Tang.
Cable Imgs comprises a series of images produced using a generative adversarial network (GAN), which has been trained on a dataset of photographs documenting cable management in visual art exhibition spaces. Based on this dataset, the network uses context encoding to generate the contents of an arbitrary image region. Each image is thus a speculative proposal for how cables—usually a marginal, supporting aspect of exhibition-making—might be organised in an exhibition space.
The network has a sensibility of its own, creating logical outcomes that possess a strong resonance across images, as well as with the original dataset and our own experiences of exhibition spaces. Still, the images retain distinctly digital textures, appearing at times hypnotic, even painterly in their abstractions. Presented as a large floor-based collage alongside smaller interventions in other areas of the exhibition space, this work is at once cheekily self-referential and a sincere engagement with the generative possibilities of machine learning.
GAN-produced images, vinyl stickers
232.5 cm x 313.5 cm; 60 x 60 cm each
2022
<aside> 👀 This work was made for a group exhibition titled Bad Imitation as part of Singapore Art Week 2022. Read more about the work here.
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