Alluvion Tapestries
This Barbarous Grammar. 166.5 X 140cm. Jacquard Loom Tapestry. 2024
This Barbarous Grammar. 166.5 X 140cm. Jacquard Loom Tapestry. 2024
This Barbarous Grammar, Detail
This Barbarous Grammar, Detail
Another Forbidden Treasure. 166.5 X 140cm. Jacquard Loom Tapestry. 2024
Another Forbidden Treasure, Detail
Another Forbidden Treasure, Detail
Another Forbidden Treasure, Detail
These Senseless Origins. 166.5 X 140cm. Jacquard Loom Tapestry. 2024
These Senseless Origins, Detail
The Uncouth Vindication. 166.5 X 140cm. Jacquard Loom Tapestry. 2024
The Uncouth Vindication, Detail
The Uncouth Vindication and This Barbarous Grammar. Wilde Gallery 2024
Another Forbidden Treasure and These Senseless Origins. Wilde Gallery 2024
Alluvion Tapestries
2024
Depicting mutated flower-insect hybrids, these images showcase a striking fusion of nature and artifice, where petals merge into insect wings and stems twist into antennae. Each unsettling, uncanny form emerges from AI trained on multiple generations of flower species, evoking the spectre of synthetic biology. This process raises profound questions about the future of natural evolution.
The hybrids are woven as Jacquard loom tapestries, referencing the software lineage that began with the loom’s punchcard system, a precursor to modern computing. These images draw parallels to 17th-century still life flower paintings, which functioned as portents, subtly warning of life’s transience. Here, the fusion of organic and synthetic foretells a new era of biological manipulation, blending past and future omens into a singular vision.
Each artwork has a unique title generated by AI, using ‘The Library of Babel’, a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, as a lexicon to draw words from. The story about a practically infinite library preempts artificial intelligence and evokes analogies with genetic code.
The series title ‘Alluvion’ refers to the new landscape that the current deluge in digital technology is shaping. The original word describes topology irrevocably changed by the detritus left behind after a flood or tsunami.