About the Artwork

In artificial intelligence ‘Latent Space’ refers to a mathematical space which maps what a neural network has learnt from training images. Once it has been trained it understands all images of trees as existing in a specific area, and all images of birds in another.

The neural network can be reverse engineered to create fake images from these coordinates*. But what if it was given a new path to travel between these recognisable points, instead moving through the in-between space?

Latent Space is a video snap-shot of an A.I. algorithm in its infancy trained using 14.2 million photographs** continuously producing new images.

For this iteration, a new soundscape by The Analog Girl was commissioned in partnership with MSCTY x Sculpture in the City.

Special thanks to Anh Nguyen et al. at Evolving-AI for their research.

* Plug & Play Generative Networks: Conditional Iterative Generation of Images in Latent Space (2016)
** ImageNet: A Large-Scale Hierarchical Image Database (2009)

 

Year: 2017 (2021 iteration)

Jake Elwes’ Latent Space will be screened the months of June (15 June onwards), July, September, November 2021, January, March and May 2022.


Copyright the artist. Photo: © Nick Turpin

Material

Digital Video made using artificial intelligence, 6 hour loop

Artist Biography

Jake Elwes

Jake is an artist living and working in London. His recent works have looked at machine learning and artificial intelligence research, exploring the code, philosophy and ethics behind it. In his art Jake engages with both the history and tropes of fine art and the possibilities and consequences of digital technology. He graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art (UCL), London in 2017. Jake's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally, including the ZKM, Germany; TANK Museum, Shanghai; Today Art Museum, Beijing; CyFest, Venice; Edinburgh Futures Institute, UK; Zabludowicz Collection, London; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Germany; New Contemporaries, UK; Ars Electronica, Austria; V&A, London; LABoral, Spain; Nature Morte, India, RMIT Gallery, Australia and has been featured on BBC4 and ZDF.