IMAGE MACHINE / MACHINE IMAGE

Galerie Gilla Lörcher Contemporary Art is very pleased to present the third solo exhibition of Rosemary Lee. In IMAGE MACHINE / MACHINE IMAGE, she examines the automation of image processes, sharing artistic authorship with machines. The exhibition is included in the Transmediale / Vorspiel Program 2019.
Technologies such as digital photography and machine learning have reshaped aesthetics, but also the possibilities of what an image can be and can do. Inspired by the quote "The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” by Sol Lewitt, this project looks at parallels between conceptual art and cybernetics. Early cyberneticians envisioned biocomputers which could be used to automate conceptual tasks, in idea which has been actualised, albeit in different form, through artificial intelligence. The large-scale automation of image production through the use of machine learning has had the effect of embedding algorithmic processes into the image-plane, while also obscuring them from view. While the procedural nature of digital images is commonplace, it brings with it an inevitable opacity. These themes are explored through a series of drawings and an installation. The drawings work with the idea of the image as a process, the performance of a set of instructions. Working with the latent aspects of images as coming from the artist's mind and articulated or expressed through the body, the drawings explore different kinds of mechanical programs, interpreting a set of procedures into visual outcomes.

Rosemary Lee (US, 1986) lives and works in Copenhagen. Lee gained her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2008) and an MA from the European Graduate School (2012). She is currently a PhD fellow at the IT-University of Copenhagen and has been a visiting PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London (2018). Rosemary Lee has received several grants and honours including the transmediale Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research (2014), the Statens Kunstfond Working Grant (2015 & 2017), Nordic Culture Point Mobility Funding (2017) and Art & Technology Project Support from the Arts Council Norway (2017).

IMAGE MACHINE / MACHINE IMAGE is informed by Rosemary Lee's PhD project, Seeing with Machines. Her current research examines how the automation of image processes impacts creative practices and contributes to an aesthetic governed by algorithmic procedurality. Lee's transdisciplinary work brings together her background in art and media studies, seeking to understand machine learning not only in terms of its functionality but also its significance in context. In her past work, Lee has explored themes across a range of fields. Her long-term projects Molten Media (2013-2018) and Cloud Harvest (2014-2016) address relations between media archaeology, geology and electronic waste. Delving into interspecies communication, she worked with hybrid ecosystems of sound equipment and plants in Symbiotic Sound (2015-2017) and Sensitivity, Plants & Noise (2012). Other projects, such as Mining the Arbitrary (2014-2016) and The Typesetter's Ruminations (2015) address the encoding of information into matter.
Her work has been shown among others at: Kunsthall Trondheim (Trondheim, NO); Nikolaj Kunsthal (Copenhagen, DK); Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen, DK); Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, USA); Phaiz (Chicago, USA); Victoria Art Center (Bucharest, RO); Haus der Kulturen der Welt, transmediale (Berlin); Luis Adelantado (Valencia, ES); Palais des Beaux Arts (Vienna, A); Rhona Hoffman Gallery (Chicago, USA); Heaven Gallery (Chicago, USA); The Holden Gallery (Manchester, UK); Galerie Gilla Lörcher I Contemporary Art (Berlin).