MYSTIC TRUTHS (WHEN ALGORITHMS BECOME FORM)

Mystic Truths / When Algorithms Become Form is a series of AI generated portraits of ‘Bruce Nauman’. Developed using various online AI text to image generators, the words ‘Bruce Nauman’ are inputted into the generators with the resulting images being collated to form a decorative, aggregate portrait of Bruce Nauman, as a proxy, or avatar of the American conceptual artist of the same name. The works are about distance, language and truth.

When Algorithms Become Form acknowledges curator Harald Szeemann’s seminal exhibition series Live In Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form (1969) as a seismic waypoint in the wider art historical narrative – a shift from an object oriented practice towards a dematerialisation state – and posits a similar ‘precipice moment’ in the contemporary cultural context with respect to intersection of visual language, image making and artificial intelligence.

Another key reference point is Bruce Nauman’s seminal artwork The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths (1967) – a neon sign which spells out the eponymous title in spiral a formation from a fixed centre.

Continuing my interest in distance and truth, and embracing the potential for both machine and human interaction, learning and error, the ‘Nauman‘ portraits are generated using minimal prompt information. The resulting images are neither truth, nor lie, existing within the uncanny valley. They are not portraits, instead they are a decorative aggregate representation calling into question the authenticity and integrity of the image by presenting the audience with a shift from ‘the’ to ‘a’ Bruce Nauman and thus opening up the possibilities for multiple Nauman’s, truths and realities.

The work is currently in development, conceptualised in 2023 but yet to be fully realised (as of 2025). The work is an ongoing and growing data bank of images.