VADIM EPSTEIN & COH
THE POEM, 2023
Single-channel video
42’06”
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.