Ebony, hard, heavy, and dark. Pearl, a round, calcareous globe, light and clear. Together, ebony and pearl, in a staff or a cannula, a prelatic insignia or a surgical tube, they make exotic instruments, dramatic and precise. A spatula as well, that opens the pages of books, incunabula, and pamphlets. Once the ceremony begins, the vein opened, the tome unfolded, what follows is scandal or death or news, consecration or convalescence or synonym. The instruments make, the materials expose, the method consummates. They make real or realize, the three, the triptych. The staff, heavy and clear, establishes. The cannula, hard and round, pierces. The spatula, dark and calcareous, cuts. Ebony and pearl together make tools, they are useful. As pendulums, they would tell time by describing in space exact, inflexible parabolas. As idols, they would be sudden and fantastical. As masks, they would terrify. It cannot be of plastic, the decay or the ecstasy or the fright.
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Prodigal Misfortunes fuses digital drawing with eerie storytelling to create a captivating realm where the boundaries between the visual and narrative blur, inviting audiences into a unique experience. This synthesis leverages the strengths of both mediums, with the algorithmic medium providing a limitless canvas for visual exploration and the eerie narratives weaving complex, thought-provoking tales that engage the imagination and evoke deep emotional responses. Algorithmic drawing, with its capacity for intricate detail and surreal environments, sets the stage for stories that push beyond the ordinary, crafting scenes that are as haunting as they are beautiful. The eerie storytelling, in turn, infuses the artwork with a narrative depth that transforms each piece into a window into otherworldly tales, filled with mystery and the uncanny. But algorithms are not neutral entities and its socio-political effects result from the will of real individuals behind them who use them as an apparatus for social control. Thus, we endeavor to maintain an explicit distance between artist and computer, in the context of the emerging AI/LLM technologies that threaten to reverse the mind-over-matter stance of classic dualism. The use of mathematical chance through algorithmic processes to create drawings, aims to break free from technological functionalism. Mathematical randomness serves as a tool to explore the artist's inner self. Despite their digital nature, these drawings are firmly rooted in the tradition of drawing: they serve as a medium for expressing the artist's thoughts, embody the process of transferring these ideas onto a canvas over time, and highlight the artist's presence. Through a created software tool the software that produces the drawing stands as an artwork on par with the produced images, although remaining invisible. Thousands of lines of code have been written, although they remain in obscurity as an inherent aspect of its personal nature.
- Pedro Alegria, Alexandra Abranches - Prodigal Misfortunes - 2024
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