‘Someone is sharing your soul’ groups together seven images captured by the artist Andy Rees created over the last 15 years. 

The first colour image depicts an artificial environment taken at a world leading zoological society. This controlled theme park like space promotes a human imagined version of a natural environment in which specimens are placed on display. This work formed part of a previous series displayed in 2018 and illustrates the type of base image from which the images in ‘Someone is sharing your soul’ have evolved.

Using similarly seductive and spectacular spaces as the foundation sources for a creative process, Rees entered a second phase of making for this new set of images. Drawing on the opportunity presented by the increasing accessibility of artificial intelligence in image manipulation and generation software, Rees engaged in a new form of creative collaboration.  During the lockdown winter of 2020 the artist used a number of AI features to reimagine the images; in effect, allowing the creative production for each image to evolve through a transfer of control between the artist and the machine.  The results depict a number of new worlds that express dualities such as control and containment, natural and artificial, grotesque and sublime.  

 

Pre-empting the cultural crises over the impact of artificial intelligence, the work raises questions about creative ownership, constructed views of nature, control and voyeurism of the natural environment and the location of the real in an increasingly augmented and mixed reality. 

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THE WORK IS CURRENTLY DISPLAYED AT THE FORUM GALLERY, LUKER WAY, SOUTHEND ON SEA, ESSEX WITH FURTHER VENUE TO BE ANNOUNCED