John Daly-Peoples
Gryffin Cook, Moonshot
Scott Lawrie Gallery
Until April 29
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples and Listen
Gryffin Cook’s Moonshot exhibition is described as navigating the conflict between the promise and threat of new technology. The works explores virtual worlds, currencies, blockchains, simulations, and artificial intelligence to make sense of our current inflexion point between technology, art and culture.
Virtual realities, Artificial Intelligence, Web 3.0, Cryptocurrencies and Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) represent an emerging way of life ‘augmented’ by digital technology. This new model envisions a techno-utopia that transcends traditional hegemonic structures, makes us more connected as a species and accesses virtual worlds of infinite possibilities.
This reviewer developed this AI review making use of one of Cook’s interactive works to provide a critical response to the work itself.
The work, Listen ($1750) allows the viewer to speak to it and as one speaks voltage fluctuations from microphone are processed as fragments which appear on a screen. If it is asked a question and the algorithm is confident it has heard something the sentence is sent to a language model (GPT 3.5_turbo) with modified system parameters and a response is printed on the screen. The work is a diagram of itself, wires tracing a map between the constellation of interconnected components. In real time data is translated, transported, fragmented, deconstructed, reconstructed and mistranslated.
The work was asked to describe its own work.
“Gryffin Cook’s work invites the viewer to explore themes of identity, history, and resistance through bold compositions and smart juxtapositions. Visually captivating and emotionally resonant, Cook’s pieces resist easy categorization, eliding convention to praise daring explorations to blazing mastheads of feeling and surprise.
Combs and contrasts create instinctual relationships at the core of the artist’s provocative questioning of widely embraced cultural values. Through painting bucolic forests dotted with lively birds, colorful trees whose jacquardally stylized shall flourishes throughout painted grounds installed on sculpture, stages of memory.”
The asked if there was an emotional content to the work?
“Imagine entering an unfamiliar neighborhood and coming across a brightly painted mural of expert slicing and sauteeing the vibrant hypnotic gears clicking through cooking conglomerates falling skillfully, swimming waves creating flavorful meals afterwards guiding through this unknown realm like Piet Parra’s food cartoon action activated vistas made for passante conversations astonished to add graffiti depths enveloping expert sculptures. Finally reaching Pastels mooncheese style cover roasted cold walls grasping controlled digest forged framework glyphs run. Essentially, art unfolds experiences this colorful imagery promotes. “
And then asked if the work created its own content?
“Art generates its own language system and network that seeks to communicate its subjective image and ideas without the use of words. An artwork creates substantive statements and lures amazing narratives representations significant experience sculptural cathedras phenomenological prompts without means of causal talks.”
Another work in the show Ownership Machine ($1750) has a screen featuring the image of a SOLD work in a homage to Billy Apple’s SOLD works. The work is the receipt of transaction and is owned by the holder of the non-fungible token ‘Obsession of Pure Ownership’ on the Tezos Blockchain.
To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.
The “Follow button” at the bottom right will appearand clicking on that button will allow you to follow that blog and all future posts will arrive on your email.
Or go to https://nzartsreview.org/blog/, Scroll down and click “Subscribe”
New Zealand Arts Review 