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Liebe Maschine, male mir

Presented byGeorg Bak

An NFT and digital art group exhibition featuring works by pioneers of algorithmic art, including Frieder Nake, Hein Gravenhorst, Herbert W. Franke, Manfred P. Kage, Alexander Mordvintsev, Ganbrood, and Espen Kluge. The show is curated by Georg Bak and Kate Vass.

elementum and Kate Vass Galerie are delighted to announce their collaboration on the group NFT and digital art exhibition "Liebe Maschine, male mir”. The show presents new artworks by pioneering computer artists inlcuding Frieder Nake, Hein Gravenhorst, Herbert W. Franke, Manfred P. Kage, Alexander Mordvintsev, Ganbrood, and Espen Kluge, which traces a broad spectrum of algorithmic art.

Creating art has always required technical aids, be it hammer and chisel, paint and brush or, in the technological age, algorithms, graphics programs and artificial intelligence. Central perspective was invented during the Renaissance, and Albrecht Dürer drew the perspective of the landscape using the so-called Dürer disc (a glass panel device). We live in an exo-evolution - to put it in the words of Peter Weibel - in which tools expand our physical and mental abilities. Martin Kippenberger even went so far as to hire professional poster painters to paint pictures for him in his series of works “Lieber Maler, male mir '' (Dear Painter, Paint for me) exhibited in 1981. This is how you can roughly imagine the "pas de deux'' between the artist-programmer and the computer. The artist sets the stage by programming an algorithm, while the machine delivers the output. Controlled coincidence can play a significant role, and unforeseen disruptive factors can occur at times. Claude Shannon's communication theory defines these as "noises”, which would eventually become an artistic medium called "glitches". In the final act, however, the artist usually decides whether he considers a picture good enough or rejects it. It is also possible to leave a generative work of art as the machine accidentally completed it. Then it is up to the viewer to assign a higher aesthetic value to one or the other piece of art. Sometimes it is purely arithmetical qualities, such as the rarity of a feature, that determine the value.

The physical exhibition is on view at the elementum.art pop up space at Zurich Airport, The Circle 18, in Zurich, Switzerland until 24th of December.