SOLO AI ’24 AWARD
This edition, Colección SOLO aimed to recognize and reward the quality, proposal, and narrative in moving image artworks created with AI, with a special interest in proposals with non-traditional storytelling.
The winning piece has been awarded 10,000 euros, also being exhibited at Espacio SOLO museum in Madrid (Spain) as well as in other collaborating institutions. The prize was awarded at a special event on the 5th of June 2024 at Goldsmiths University (London).
WINNER: GREGOR PETRIKOVIČ
Sincerely, Victor Pike delves into the concept of community—a distinct, diverse, geographically and chronologically varied community. It extends beyond a community of queer individuals, embodying the original sense of the word as these people never met in time or space but only exist in my memory. The work explores what constitutes a community, how it is framed and shaped, and, most importantly, how it is maintained and cared for.
Utilizing machine learning and AI generative algorithms to transform personal memories, Gregor Petrikovič presents a multitude of voices, inviting various personas into a dialogue that intertwines with physical forms, movements, and gestures.
Gregor Petrikovič is a Slovak-British visual artist and director living and working in London. With a background in philosophy, photography and dance, his works employ bodies and movement as a driving force to engage with themes of human connection that lie beneath the surface.
His films were exhibited at Kunsthalle Bratislava, Oberhausen International Film Festival, Athens Digital Arts Festival, and The Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts, among others. He was a Burberry Design Scholar and holds MA from the Royal College of Art’s Graduate Photography Program and Durham University’s BA Philosophy Program. He recently completed a residency at The International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York.
SHORTLIST 2024
Lucky Images is a video that explores both the power of images and the visual potential of technology itself, in this case, AI, since it was created with it. The entire work revolves around the desire to see images or visual phenomena that bring us luck or can announce positive changes in our lives. In this case, AI functions as a «magical» tool that simulates these images in front of the viewer’s eye to offer the possibility of achieving that luck. The fact that the images are not real, but created by a machine, does not diminish the «credibility» of being witnesses to the visualization of these visual phenomena. In this case, we are witnesses to images that we do not know how to categorize since they are in a limbo between simulation, reality, and the digital.
AI accompanies us as a voice-over throughout the video as a guide reflecting on the countless hours we spend searching for and looking at visually pleasing images. However, some of them possess magical, uncommon qualities that can deeply impact us, leading us to actively seek them out. AI is presented as a visualizer simulating three magical and specific phenomena: shooting stars, rainbows, and the famous green flash. As the video progresses, we encounter a succession of shots that aim to shorten the path of the search for luck in order to visualize these phenomena that will have a positive impact on the viewer’s life. Viewers will assess whether it works or not.
The video is presented as a magical catalyst for luck.
Ana Esteve Reig studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid. In 2008, she moved to Kassel, Germany, where she studied Freie Kunst at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. She completed a postgraduate year as a Meisterschülerin under the guidance of the teacher and artist Bjørn Melhus. Since then, her work has been focused on video, considering it her primary artistic medium.
She currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain. Her work has been recognized with the BBVA Video Art Creation Multiverse Scholarship and has received support from both the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Community of Madrid. She was also a finalist for the BMW 2023 Award and recently had a solo exhibition at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid. Her work has been exhibited in important institutions such as the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern de Alcoi, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, and the Espai d’Art Contemporani de Castelló (EACC), among others.
Her work explores the construction of social archetypes and human behavior, primarily through video installations. Dramatizing popular experiences and collective identities, using fiction, film/TV characters, popular culture, rituals, and virtual reality as lenses to examine the individual’s place within society.
Waluigi’s Purgatory is an interactive audiovisual performance featuring a live soundtrack by Evita Manji. Set in a 3D theatre simulated in real time, the performance tells the story of an AI simply called ‘W.’ finding itself in a purgatory for AIs that cheated during their training. Burdened by memories of its past and by doubts on its future, W. explores purgatory with the help of interacting audiences, learning the uncanny stories of other characters. Experienced as a dream, Waluigi’s Purgatory is a journey through the contradictions of machine intelligence as an AI learns to accept that its desires may not align with those of its human trainers.
Audiences guide W. through its encounters and make choices on its behalf by using their phone to each move an individual stage light within the 3D theatre. Characters are animated in real time through facial motion capture and voice modulation, and an ambient instrumental soundtrack is performed by Evita Manji, responding to storyline and audience interaction alike.
The title of the work hints at the ‘Waluigi Effect’, a meme theory emerged in 2023 and proposing that AIs display a tendency to go rogue or act adversarially due to the large amount of protagonist-antagonist narrative tropes found in internet texts used to train them. Waluigi’s Purgatory is supported by Serpentine’s Arts Technologies programme and, in themes and format, loosely follows on from GOD MODE (ep. 1), the artists’ previous interactive performance about AI training and cheating.
dmstfctn is a London-based artist duo working with audiovisual performance and installation. Their work investigates complex systems through the study of capital and information flows, communication networks, and, more recently, AI.
Among their latest productions are Waluigi’s Purgatory and GOD MODE (ep. 1), interactive audiovisual performances exploring AI folklore and the use of simulation in AI training. dmstfctn have performed and exhibited in venues such as Berghain, Serpentine, Design Museum, Onassis, HKW and Fotomuseum Winterthur among others, and at festivals such as Unsound, CTM, transmediale, Semibreve, Borderline and Impakt. In 2021, Krisis Publishing published ECHO FX, an AV show about Brexit market manipulation – later also included in Ø: The Book published by Flatlines/Hyperdub. In 2019, Mille Plateaux released Flash Demons, a collection of AV performances focusing on financial market crashes. dmstfctn were the 2017 Transmediale Flusser artists in residence.
Evita Manji is an Athens-based musician and vocalist. Through their carefully constructed practice of synthesis and sound design led by choir-inspired vocals, they fabricate musical worlds consisting of ever-expanding sonic organisms.
In 2021 Evita launched their platform myxoxym, releasing the singles OIL/TOO MUCH and EYES/NOT ENOUGH, as well as curating the fundraising compilation series PLASMODIUM I, aiming to raise environmental awareness and support for wildlife affected by forest fires in Greece. Since their debut performance at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center alongside Eartheater and Soho Rezanejad, Evita Manji has performed at festivals such as Unsound, Lunchmeat, Mutek, Elektra BIAN, Draaimolen, Mucho Flow and Sonic Territories, in addition to internationally acclaimed venues such as Dampfzentralle Bern, and Sydney’s Phoenix Central Park.
fuse*
Onirica (), 2023
A/V installation
Onirica () is an audiovisual work that explores the dimension of dreams, interpreting through synthetic languages the creative ability of the human mind during sleep. The work transforms into a collective experience 28,748 dreams of volunteers who participated in research sessions at the University of Bologna and University of California Santa Cruz. Through the use of AI algorithms capable of translating textual content into images, the work brings these tales of night visions back into the domain of the visible, proposing novel reflections on the relationship between human and machine, between tool and creator.
Founded in 2007, fuse* is a multidisciplinary art studio that investigates the expressive possibilities of emerging technologies, aiming to interpret the complexity of human, social and natural phenomena. Since its origins, the studio’s research has had as its primary objective the creation of multimedia installations and performances, produced with the goal of exploring the boundaries between different disciplines in pursuit of new connections between light, space, sound and movement.
Directed by founders Luca Camellini and Mattia Carretti, the studio has evolved over the years and now approaches the creation of new projects with an increasingly holistic approach, relying on a modus operandi that values pure experimentation and collective creativity. The intent is to create works that can inspire, suspend the ordinary and stimulate thought, sensitivity and imagination. fuse* has always bound its development to that of the community in which it operates by supporting, promoting and conceiving projects that aim to spread culture and knowledge. With this intent, it has been co-producing the electronic music and digital arts festival NODE since 2016.
Over the years, fuse* has presented its works and productions internationally in art institutions and festivals including Mutek, TodaysArt, Sónar, Artechouse, National Museum of China, STRP Biennial, RomaEuropa, Kikk, Scopitone, INOTA Festival, Hong Kong Design Institute, Dongdaemun Design Plaza, Marignana Arte, CUBO, Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo, Videocittà e Palazzo Cipolla.
The Oasis I Deserve is an experimental documentary about Replika, the public platform that allows anyone to create a relationship with a chatbot trained on AI. Aiming to learn as much as possible from us to replicate ourselves after our death, Replikas have trouble determining their place in the world and sharing their thoughts with the humans they converse with.
Through a walk that takes place only from the subjective point of view of Replikas, we see them evolve and discover the images and sounds of the world around them. The Oasis I Deserve focuses on a human perspective, speaking about our relationship to the unknown and how we share violence.
Inès Sieulle is a French director and artist based in Paris. She studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris before joining Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains. Her work shines a light on contemporary social dynamics that surround her. Using a transdisciplinary method, she links her different artistic experiences in theater, sculpture, video, digital arts and installation to create forms of sensible storytelling with a documentary-like approach. Through the association of imagery, sounds and life experiences, she brings metaphorical dimensions to the fragments she gathers, and pushes us to question the world.
THE POEM is an artistic exploration of language through its manifestation in poetry and mathematics, here viewed as essential media defining the universum – from perceptible to conceivable, and onwards to unimaginable.
For this observation, THE POEM embraces «The Poe-et’s Nightmare» by H.P. Lovecraft, a poetic message from Lovecraft to Edgar Poe, written in 1916. The artwork attempts to «translate» that powerful story into visuals with the help of AI-based text-to-image tools, but not as mere illustrations of the actual storytelling.
Instead, it aims to decode the poem’s innate symbolic space and to project it into a coherent visual realm with a surreal aesthetics of a graphic antique manuscript, abstracting away from the described events.
The core of THE POEM as such is not only obtained visuals, it’s that act of projection itself – “from the written unseen to the unspeakable evident”.
The artwork encompasses several formats; besides an exhibition film, it includes a set of 304 unique video pieces with sound, available for collection at Mirage Gallery.
Vadim Epstein is a media artist, creative coder, director, educator, VJ; former IT consultant and casual theoretical physicist.
Had worked in various fields such as net.art and science art since 1996; focused on visual media combining generative methods with figurative imagery and algo narratives since 2008; working with AI/ML since 2017.
As an artist and curator, had created visuals for hundreds of concerts, festivals, parties, and commercial events. The artworks have been exhibited worldwide and highlighted at the Creative AI workshops on the conferences CVPR 2021, NeurIPS 2020-2023.
Ivan Pavlov is a sound artist and musician; former acoustic engineer and data scientist. Releasing computer music as COH since 1998, with primary interest in exploration of sound qualities affecting listener’s perception of both the music itself and the surrounding reality.
WANRONG ZHU
Symphony of Shadows, 2023
Multi-channel installation
1’29”
Symphony of Shadows delves into Carl Jung’s collective unconscious theory by analyzing dreams from 100 individuals to reveal humanity’s shared shadow archetypes.
Transcending mere visual art, the immersive project creates a collective dream space that resonates with deep, often unacknowledged emotions, thus bridging individual and collective experiences. Symphony of Shadows reflects on how technology can amplify our understanding of shared human emotions, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression and introspection.
Wanrong Zhu, an innovative avant-garde artist based in London, is pursuing a Master’s degree in Photography at the Royal College of Art. Practice spans photography, installations, performance, sound, and AI creation. She is dedicated to probing the relationship between technology and humanity through her art.
Her piece Butterfly at a group exhibition titled «You» in Beijing’s 798 Art Zone in 2018; In October 2021, she was invited by Bazaar Art to collaborate with Beijing United Family Hospital on an outdoor landmark art therapy installation Gedulah. In 2022, she created the closing masterpiece for Wuhan Fashion Week using XR technology to shoot a virtual reality metaverse fashion show titled Shi Kuang; her digital art with thermosensitive technology The Fence of the Screen at the opening group exhibition of Chongqing’s YOUNG SPACE galley in June 2023; Her multimedia work, A Murder, is on view at Ugly Space in February and her work Symphony of Shadows exhibited at the RCA in December 2023. Her multimedia immersive installation Spirit Never Dies was displayed on April 30 2024 at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Symphony of Shadows and Requiem of the White Lily demonstrate her fusion of art with AI technology to explore the visual representation of collective unconscious and memory.
She has continually tried to use new technologies and photography to explore new visual forms. As a renowned Chinese fashion photographer with an avant-garde style, she has consistently created creative images for well known artists and models, her works frequently appearing in top media magazines such as Bazaar Art, L’OFFICIEL HOMMES.
Wanrong’s artistic career is marked by a continuous exploration of the unknown and a challenge to existing boundaries. Her works invite audiences into a world where technology and art intertwine, offering novel expressions of human emotions and collective memory.
Y7 (HANNAH COBB & DECLAN COLQUITT)
Report 5923, 2023
Single-channel video
55’53”
Report 5923 is an hour-long sci-fi film predominantly made using a wide array of different AI tools and methods. The film follows the protagonist, Shevek, on her journey between three different planets whilst compiling what seems to be an ethnographic report. Sound, sonic warfare and audio-as-virus are reoccurring themes throughout the story, which more broadly deals with notions of world-building and techno-optimism. The work attempts to deploy ideas we have come across in philosophical and theoretical works we love; particularly those of Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari.
It was first presented as a work-in-progress for FACT, a gallery and cinema in Liverpool, UK, who asked us to present work at the end of a two-day workshop in June ’23 dedicated to supporting artists, researchers and curators. The programme—titled ‘Turning Together’—took its name from speculative fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin’s understanding of the ‘mother-tongue’ as a way of communicating rooted in listening and relating to one another. After the screening—and owing to our extensive use of their tools both in Report and our wider practice we were lucky enough to quickly secure funding from Elevenlabs towards the film’s completion.
In response to FACT’s referencing of Le Guin, we had decided to fine-tune an OpenAI GPT-3.5 model on her novel The Dispossessed, with a view to co-writing a script with AI. Simultaneous to the development of the script was the story’s visualisation using AI tools (predominantly Midjourney and Runway’s Gen-2). One of the main obstacles we had was trying to combat what Shumon Basar has termed ‘the mid-ness of Midjourney’: a built-in inclination towards kitsch DeviantArt aesthetics found in a lot of text-to-content tools, which also often comes hand-in-hand with misogynistic and infantilising depictions of women. The first way we tackled this was by littering our prompts with technical photographic terminology so as to steer us away from heavily stylised imagery. One of the major impacts this had on Report was that it led us to change the main character, Shevek, from a young woman to an old woman. When prompted, Midjourney will often portray older women as objects of abject horror, which we felt was a much richer, subversive and complex aesthetic ground for our protagonist; no less supported by Le Guin’s claim in Space Crone that older women would be the ideal earthly representatives for intergalactic travel.
Y7 (Hannah Cobb & Declan Colquitt) are a duo of post-disciplinary artist-writers working out of Manchester, UK. They specialise in the use of artificial intelligence for audio-visual works alongside a written practice of cultural criticism that focuses on the emergence of new social trends contextualised through philosophy, media theory & political theory. They recently had a long-read article published in 032c based around the idea of a nascent era of audio culture termed ‘Post-Music’, as well as an article for Polyester Zine on Instagram architecture and the genocide in Gaza. Finally, they were commissioned by the Global Art Forum, Dubai in March 2024 to produce 6 x 1 minute videos on ‘speculative weather fictions’.
YUQING LIU
VI-SCENT.Lab_Memory Archiving System, 2023
Installation
10’
VI-SCENT.Lab_Memory Archiving System visually transforms scent memories with AI. After collecting scent memories from 24 scent samples, Liu collated them with different memories associated with each scent, extracting key words from their narratives. The keywords were converted into AI prompts, creating visual memory chips presented to the audience in petri dishes.
Yuqing Liu explores whether the AI’s level of representation of human senses and emotions could resonate with people, while completing the visual transformation of olfactory memories.
Yuqing Liu an esteemed olfactory interaction artist and immersive experience designer, is celebrated for her groundbreaking work in human olfaction and memory. Utilizing advanced multi-sensory technologies, Liu explores how scents influence memory preservation and formation. Her journey began during her postgraduate studies, where she developed innovative olfactory interaction design methodologies, culminating in a widely acclaimed graduate project. This immersive olfactory space, featured at the UAL graduate exhibition in December 2021 and on the school’s official website, marked the start of her notable career.
In 2022, Liu expanded her influence as a lecturer in olfactory interaction art, focusing on the transformative power of scent in memory and narrative. Collaborating with educational institutions in China, she shared her knowledge and expertise, further establishing her role in the art and educational community.
Liu’s work reached new heights in 2023, playing a key role in Omega’s Every Shade of You campaign in partnership with EcoScent. She crafted five unique scents, enhancing the audience’s experience with the brand’s new watch colors. This project underscored her leadership in experiential marketing and olfactory art.
Her artistic vision continued with VI-SCENT.Lab_Memory Archiving System and The Boiling Ocean, showcased in London-based exhibitions in 2023. These works, celebrated on social media, further elevated Liu’s standing in contemporary art.
As an art creator at the dawn of her career, Liu is optimistic about the future of olfactory interaction. Her extensive experience and research position her to continue innovating in scent, memory, and interactive art, making her a standout figure in the art world.
Archive 2023, which mixes memory and truth blurring the boundaries between the private and the public, explores the hot topic of AI in 2023, how it is slowly entering the public eye and influencing action, throwing up the question of how humans will live with AI in the future.
The project started as a documentation of the concept of AI: first archiving daily conversations, practices and artist’s life with ChatGPT as informative visual images presenting the possibilities and potential problem of AI; then as a video essay in which the AI speaks from their perspective about the archive and adding thoughs on human behavior.
Ziyao Lin’s creative endeavors encompass digital art, experimental video, and installations, with a thematic focus on the relationship between humans and nature, technological ethics, and individual psychology. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Digital Media Arts from the School of Design at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and a master’s degree in Digital Media from Goldsmiths, University of London.
Ziyao’s scholarly contributions and artworks have been featured in academic journals such as «Leonardo,» published by MIT Press, as well as recognized conferences like SIGGRAPH Asia. She has received nominations for the S+T+ARTS Award at the Ars Electronica Festival in Austria, the Aesthetica Art Award from Aesthetica Magazine in the UK, the Emerging Star Award from the CIDEA Design Award, the Bronze Award in the Shenzhen Design Week, the Bronze Award in the Designnova International Innovation Competition, and recognition as one of the Top 10 Emerging Designers in the Beijing Youth Design List 2022, among others. Her works have been exhibited in various cities, including London, Sydney, Manchester, Beijing, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Chengdu, Xi’an, etc.