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Untitled by Michael Reisch
Presented byGeorg Bak
We are excited to announce the much-anticipated drop by Michael Reisch this Thursday, 25th May, at 6 pm CEST. Reisch's oeuvre is a remarkable combination of artistic creativity and advanced technology, blending photography, sculpture, and advanced digital tools, pushing, at the same time, the boundaries of what is traditionally considered as photography. Bound to captivate art enthusiasts and collectors alike, the upcoming drop is an outstanding example of Reisch's artistic practice.
Born in 1964, Michael Reisch is a German artist and photographer whose pioneering oeuvre encompasses photography and sculpture - and his innovative use of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and other new-age digital tools has revolutionized the international art scene. His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries, and is part of collections worldwide: including Kunstmuseum Bonn, LACMA Los Angeles, Fotomuseum Winterthur, among others. He has received numerous awards and grants, and he currently teaches as Professor for Photography and Digital Media at the Alanus-Hochschule, Bonn-Alfter, Germany. He is the initiator and central figure of the darktaxa-project, a platform for artists working experimentally at the interface of photography and new digital imaging techniques. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.
This much-awaited NFT drop showcases Reisch’s experimental practice of generating images and objects from digitally generated optical illusions through an exclusive collection of works curated by Georg Bak. The collection will feature works created using Machine Learning and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), exploring the potential of algorithmic mathematical designs that draw viewers into a digital-algorithmic art world through primary geometric shapes and mesmerizing sequences and loops that are both reduced and minimalist.
These advanced techniques allow Reisch to train AI with images of his previous artworks, thus giving the AI a foundation to create new shapes, colors, and designs. The result is an evolution of Reisch's previous work, taking his vision into unexplored territories.
Reisch's work resembles a scientist's experimental approach rather than a traditional artist's. His investigations into the medium have been described as "an open-ended process in which image-generating processes come into play and, at the same time, are reflexively critically examined." (Peter Friese, 2018).
The upcoming drop offers a glimpse into the evolving intersection of technology and artistic expression and the exploration of the photographic medium's boundaries under digital conditions. At the same time, it challenges and redefines our understanding of photography and digital art.
In the following extract from a conversation between Georg Bak and Michael Reisch published on Foto / Kunst / Theorie (Der Sprengel FOTO-Blog), the artist reveals multilayered nuances on the question of the interface between photography and the new imaging processes:
“The world around us has shifted massively into the virtual, and the depicting, direct "photography" could not follow this well, among other things, because it is mostly bound to clear surfaces. I think this limitation of means in view of the digital shift has also contributed to the countless, existential permanent crises of "photography" in recent years, to a significant gap in the discourse. However, the new digital tools solve this problem, they are the decisive key for us artists. With their help, we can go straight into the operative structure of the digital and deal with the virtual world, with the constant transitions from material to immaterial, in a completely different way. This enables other, fundamentally newly constituted images and reconciles the generative with the imaging possibilities of "photography-that-no-longer-is"; one no longer excludes the other. This is certainly not the only way to deal with the situation, but currently, one that works for us and is currently providing new images and answers.”
Join us at 6 pm CEST this Thursday for the grand reveal of Michael Reisch's latest collection, exclusively on elementum.
