(Get) In Touch

(Get) in Touch with nature and technology by finding bits of understanding. The exhibition invites you to explore how technology interacts with organic and physical environments, encouraging proactive ways to engage with our ever more complex world.

EJTECH – Judit Eszter Kárpáti (HU), Esteban de la Torre (MX)

Dung Dkar Cloak

Dung Dkar Cloak is an interactive installation that combines digital jacquard weaving, sound synthesis, fractal geometry, and algorithmic thinking to unfold matter into the visual and sonic domains. Dung Dkar Cloak is a soft interface specifically created for intuitive musical interactions. It is a fractal tapestry augmented in order to create an intimate explorative material experience.

Laura Cinti (IT)

AI in the Sky

The Encephalartos woodii (E. woodii) is a rare cycad, classified as ‘extinct in the wild,’ and known only from a single male specimen discovered in oNgoye Forest, South Africa. Removed from its natural habitat, it survives today through cloned fragments of the original plant. As a dioecious species, it requires a female counterpart for sexual reproduction – without which no seeds can be produced.

oNgoye Forest has not been fully surveyed, leaving open the possibility of undiscovered specimens. Until now, expeditions have relied on traditional field-based searches on foot. In our search, drones and multispectral imaging are used and combined with AI-assisted species detection to search for the E. woodii over the forest.

In AI in the Sky, the materials from the drone flights, the mosaic maps, the AI outputs, and the synthetic imagery are woven together into a visual narrative where the forest dissolves into data that is processed, segmented, reassembled and analysed by algorithms. The search is ongoing. 

Sputniko! (JP)

Drone in Search for a Four-Leaf Clover

Four-leaf clovers, with their rare and mystical allure, have captivated hearts for centuries.
They bring happiness to those fortunate enough to discover them. When the artist Sputniko! was little, she used to embark on quests in search of one. In a sea of lush green clovers, she carefully examined each specimen, and time would slip away. In today’s era of AI-driven efficiency, Sputniko! equipped a drone with advanced image recognition algorithms, enabling it to effortlessly locate all the lucky clovers at speed. The drone scans fields of clover and instantly pinpoints one with remarkable precision.

Martyna Marciniak (PL/DE)

Anatomy of Non-Fact: Chapter 1 – AI Hyperrealism

In the spring of 2023, a photo of the Pope wearing a stylish Balenciaga coat went viral on social media, triggering widespread curiosity. It was widely shared until it was revealed that the image, despite looking very real, was actually AI-generated and therefore fake.

In an age of visual communication marked by fakes, it becomes crucial to learn how to recognize when aesthetics take precedence over facts. In her research for Anatomy of Non-Fact, artist Martyna Marciniak delves into the topic of mis- and over-information in the context of the looming threat of synthetic images.

AI Hyperrealism, the first chapter of Anatomy of Non-Fact, engages with the hyperrealism of the so-called “Balenciaga Pope” image. The 18-minute video introduces a monologue delivered by a “Balenciaga Pope” impersonator, reflecting on the nature of fact. The work challenges the viewer’s trust in photographic images and authoritative sources of truth, bending traditional ideas of visual evidence.

Timothy Thomasson (CA)

I’m Feeling Lucky

I’m Feeling Lucky is a real-time, computer-generated animation that explores relationships with image, geography, virtual space, historical media technology, and mass data collection systems. The work showcases an endless 3D virtual landscape that is both historically and geographically ambiguous, generated in real-time using game engine technology. This virtual landscape is populated with thousands of figures sourced from Google Street View, each processed through a deep neural network to become three-dimensional models frozen in their original photographed poses.

The work draws on 19th century panorama paintings, which hold historical, cultural, and perceptual significance, situating them within contemporary media contexts. In I’m Feeling Lucky, the panoramic image becomes infinite as the virtual camera slowly pans across the landscape endlessly.