beta tales Sebulec / Andrei Isakov / Jakub Wróblewski
„Nie Powszechny spis artystów” part V / Gallery Salon Akademii
curatorial text | Kat Zawada
Data has become a sensitive issue. Since it has become impossible to separate the digital from the non-digital, data has become part of us. Databases have taken the form of a digital collective memory, recording human smiles, sorrows and stories of success and failure on the disks of this world. Sensitive or not, their use can serve different purposes – destructive or constructive.

Using machine learning, Sebulec, Isakov and Wróblewski create a delicate gesture that transforms collective memory into collective imagination. „beta tales” consists of three open-ended narratives captured in the process, morphing, awaiting their first test. They cannot be touched, but in my fantasies they are perversely slippery, emitting a synthetic sound under the pressure of hands. Am I the only one who dreams of touching them, or do they desire my touch too?

Wróblewski weaves a visual narrative about tactility through an 18-part sculptural group made from airbags, spandex, lycra, vacuum and a mechanical metal arm. Although their abstract aesthetics mock my neurotic search for meaning, I speculate about their purpose – ergonomic armour, or perhaps colonnades enclosed in a cloud of material? The objects are based on visual prototyping using language models such as Python, TensorFlow and PyTorch, accompanied by projections of objects designed through deep learning.

untitled | two sculptural groups, airbags in elastane and lycra collars, vacuum, electric lifting transporter, 2024, 200x100x150 cm
untitled | synthographic forms based on visual prototyping using llm (large language model: python, tensorflow, and pytorch), 2024, video projection, 1:1, loop

Wróblewski examines the essence of designing forms using databases. He often combines opposing visual models into sets driven by the need to affirm new, unknown values and relationships. Machine learning prototypes are an extension of the desire for tactile sensations and fantasies within the realms of neurotic figuration. The design process involves working with collective memory, manifested in sets of images living and overproduced on the internet since its inception. Echoes of recognizable forms seek ways of communication that trigger tension. Machine learning becomes a way of prototyping, dreaming of building previously non-existent representations and objects, disregarding their functionality and practical aspects, although the artist's interest in gorpcore trend is visible in them. Materials used in the construction of physical phantoms, often arising from erroneous but romantic processing of digital images, are temporary. Objects undergo continuous change. Segmentary components create compositions with multifunctional applications. They will function before and after in the circulation system, just like components of synthographic representations. Haptic works resulting directly from algorithmic action raise questions about the consequences of using tools and incomplete and undefined regulations regarding artificial intelligence. The secondary use of materials resonates with the trend of degrowth and redistribution.