Jake Elwes

CUSP

Video installation, 2019

Video installation, 2019
4K digital video, audio, 13 minute loop

In CUSP, the artist’s familiar childhood location on the Essex marshes is reframed by inserting images randomly generated by a neural network (GAN*) into this tidal landscape.

Initially trained on a photographic dataset, the machine proceeds to learn the embedded qualities of different marsh birds, in the process revealing forms that fluctuate between species, with unanticipated variations emerging without reference to human systems of classification.

* Neural networks are programming models which are biologically inspired and learn from observing data. GANs (generative adversarial networks) are neural networks which learn to mimic through generation and refinement.

Jake Elwes (UK)

New media artist. Born in 1993 in London. His recent works have looked at Artificial Intelligence, investigating the technology, philosophy and ethics behind it. Jake graduated with a BA in Fine Art from the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), London in 2017, having also attended SAIC, Chicago (Erasmus) in 2016, and is currently working with Steve Fletcher at The Artist Development Agency. 

Jake has exhibited internationally, including Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2017, Newcastle & London, UK; Ars Electronica 2017, Linz, Austria; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; City Loop, Barcelona, Spain; NIPS 2017, Long Beach, US; Nature Morte, Delhi, India; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany and Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI), Cambridge, UK. Lives and works in London, UK.

www.jakeelwes.com