Exhibition > 2024 > Group Exhibitions > Dialogue: I Am Because We Are
DIALOGUE: I Am Because We Are
Gyomyung Shin | Aug 16 - Sep 6, 2024 | Hwigyumjae (46-3, Bukchon-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul)
Gyomyung Shin
Aug 31 - Sep 28, 2024 | ROY GALLERY Cheongdam B1, 4F
Engineer before becoming an artist, Shin Gyo-myung invents his own art mediums. His robot painters are capable of generating series of original canvases, proposing a controversial but meaningful reversal of the hierarchy between the artist and the machine. Will AI replace the artist? Shin Gyo-myung’s work raises one of the most pertinent issues in contemporary art.
Shin Gyo-myung belongs to the very rare category of visual creators who were trained as engineers and not as artists. Unlike most artists, Shin Gyo-myung doesn’t create based on references in art history (he hardly visited museums before making art) but on references in the science area. Shin Gyo-myung was born in the generation of Homo Digitalis, who was raised since childhood surrounded by computers and their growing influence in all segments of life and activity. Trained as a mechanical engineer and designer, making his first kinetic like objects in metal, Shin Gyo-myung came to art following the visual opportunities offered by the developments of AI. When the French collective of scientists and businessmen named Obvious presented in 2018 their AI Portrait of Edmond de Belamy (based on GANs technology and successfully sold by Christie’s), Shin Gyo-myung started to investigate the possibilities of AI to make original artworks. In a few years, he then invented a series of artist robots, increasingly intelligent and capable of creating imaginary figures.
After the Machina Sapiens, where the artist still controlled most of the creation, his latest robot “Lee Il-O,” developed since 2021, offers one of the most advanced “thinking” art tools. Unlike other AI robots, based on art data and recreating it as pixels, “Lee Il-O” is programmed to express itself by drawing lines in empty spaces, without any deep learning background in art history. Shin Gyo-myung is therefore raising a very critical issue in the art world through his unique process: how AI tools could radically reverse the hierarchy between the medium of creation and the creator. Shin Gyo-myung assumes the role of a kind of “assistant” to the robot Il-O, only selecting for the robot-artist the type of brush the intelligent machine will use and the subject (which is often Shin himself). In this rare and delicate experience, the artist becomes both an assistant and the model of the “artist” the robot has become.
Indeed, a series of canvases by Il-O presents portraits of the artist, half abstract, half figurative. The 'Portrait of Gyomyung Shin -5-' looks like it comes from a third dimension. By attributing a rather large brush to his robot, Shin Gyo-myung ensures the portraits will remain undefined, bringing a welcoming universality to his work. In another series, featuring abstract compositions based on the pixel shape, Shin Gyo-myung aims to “portray” the perception of the robot.
In any case, and this is a significant point, Shin Gyo-myung remains the master of the performative artwork that the invention and installation of the robot itself constitute. Nevertheless, through his series of paintings, Il-O confirms what the pioneer of robotic art Nicolas Schöffer predicted in 1956 (the same year the concept of AI was invented): “In the future, the artist will not create more artwork; he will create the creation.” Here, we are entering the art scene of the AI Planet.
Jerome Neutres
Shin Gyo-myung: When the artist becomes the assistant of the Robot
Critique
Installation View
Portrait of Gyomyung Shin 0-0-35
162.2x112.1cm
Acrylic on canvas
2024
Portrait of Gyomyung Shin 0-4-3
162.2x112.1cm
Acrylic on canvas
2024
Portrait of Gyomyung Shin 4-0-10
162.2x112.1cm
Acrylic on canvas
2024