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Year:
2023
Medium:
Sculptural Installation: Metal Pipes, Concrete, Photography, Generative AI, CGI, Textile Print
Exhibition History:
2023 – ThisTime/NextTime – Group Show, New Wight Gallery, Los Angeles, US
Description:
Mixed-media installation that investigates the relationship between computer-generated images and the social periphery. In the Romanian language, a mahala is a neighborhood located at the periphery of a city, associated with precarity and poor living conditions. The prefix meta- refers to the relationship of this social territory to ideas around digital utopias.
The image printed on the textile is created using a blend of photography, CGI, and generative AI, materializing the process by which computer-generated images are increasingly taking over photography’s role in representing reality.
Photo Credits:
Paloma Dooley
The physical structure of the installation symbolizes a carpet cleaning bar, a common utilitarian object situated between block buildings in Eastern Europe. It is an iconic object because, beyond its utilitarian role, it has historically functioned as a communal space where diverse social groups would gather and socialize.
The central figure in the textile print, Abel, represents myself as an Eastern European man. He is created from a 3D scan of my face transposed on a metahuman, and further blends methods of visual representation from photography, to CGI and generative AI.