Anicka Yi ßñ†L§ßLñ, 2024

The work is a unique painting that is UV printed using imagery generated through a custom-made machine learning model. The sculptural facet of the painting is made by milling the acrylic surface. The painting has an almost holographic effect, its appearance shifts slightly as one moves. Photography cannot properly document this effect.

The imagery was generated by the artist working in dialogue with several machine-learning algorithms, deconstructing and manipulating her past work to prompt and guide the algorithms in unexpected directions. Each of these models started from the original “Anicka Yi” model, but then evolved in new directions by mixing in a profusion of novel imagery from algae, bacteria, and fungi, tissues and cells, flora and fauna, machines and electronics, paint strokes and fluid media, geological formations, and landscapes (aquatic, terrestrial, and cosmic). Yi conceptualized this process as hybridizing her own visual patterns and motifs (her visual “DNA”) with those of other ecological entities, living and non-living alike.