‘Code is Art’ : A Chat with Artist Sergio Albiac
Explorations of AI Art — Episode 20
Beth Jochim, Director and Co-Founder at Cueva Gallery. Twitter: @_bblurred
“I consider code, the algorithm itself, a work of art.” Sergio Albiac
Sergio Albiac is an artist with a computer science and art background, based in Barcelona, Spain, whose work is at the intersection of deep learning, generative computer code and traditional media. Not being constrained by a single medium or style, but interested in exploring the realm of possibilities that technology offers to create art, he investigates how traditional and new media can blend together and bring to life something of profound value. Thus were born paintings, video art pieces, interactive installations running on the cloud, giclée prints and generative portraits.
Fascinated by the dialogues between control vs. randomness, and human vs. machine, Albiac’s work investigates also the concepts of identity, creativity, emotions, memories, and chance, and gives space to the tensions that arise when the reality we build in our heads confronts the external world. Many are the works created around these ideas.
In The generative identity of Walter Vanhaerents, for example, a project and interactive art installation in partnership with Lexus, the artist transforms the car into a work of art. Each time the driver starts a journey, a new artwork is created using real time data from the car sensors. The output becomes a sum, and interpretation, of the artist’s hand brushwork and generative aesthetics affected by the driving style and the duration of the drive. The project — which explores human identity by mixing choice and chance with randomness and control — has been a challenge and has pushed Albiac to further develop a flexible process of generative artistic creation that transforms meaning into artworks.
Full interview on Cueva Gallery’s website: https://cuevagallery.com/blogs/explorations-of-ai-art/sergio-albiac
