2024,
Video loop with sound, 3:55 min
In the video “Desert Land” by Erika Kassnel-Henneberg a watercolor painting by Bachmann was used as the initial image for several AI morphing sequences, which oscillates between dream and nightmare. Like an echo, the various media relate to each other in terms of content and time and at the same time symbolize the idea of the echo chamber.
From the cooperation project Reminiscence & Echo Chamber.
A drawing by Bachmann, inspired by a still from RE02-In the Mood, is the initial image for this video. The AI’s association with visualizing an underwater scene was taken up here and developed further in moving images.
From the cooperation project Reminiscence & Echo Chamber.
This video is the second output of the dialog between traditional media and artificial intelligence. Under controlled experimental conditions, a still from an AI-generated video was repeatedly animated with the help of AI. The different “levels of aggression” that were attributed to the “person” by the AI and manifested themselves in corresponding movements were interesting. The movement studies are accompanied acoustically by variations of Glen Miller’s In the Mood.
2024, video with sound, 2:17 min
From the cooperation project Reminiscence & Echo Chamber.
2026,
Videoloop with sound, AI-generated, 4:25 min,
mp4-file, ratio 16:9,
Limited edition: 5 + 2AP, available.
In this iterative experiment, we investigated which visual and semantic patterns an AI derives from an initial image based on learned representations, when that image serves as the starting point and the subsequent prompts deliberately deviate significantly in content from the image context.
From the cooperation project Reminiscence & Echo Chamber – Artificial Intelligence and Painting in Dialogue with Silke Bachmann.
Exhibition History:
2026 – Reminiscence & Echo Chamber – Artificial Intelligence and Painting in Dialog, München, digital art space
Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping our society, whether as intelligent household appliances or applications that make everyday routines easier, as universal geniuses that find answers to almost all of our questions, or as viral images and videos that cause amazement, amusement or horror on social media. A feeling of insecurity spreads in the face of so much intelligent anarchy. The artists Silke Bachmann (painting, drawing) and Erika Kassnel-Henneberg (video, AI, concept, Polaroid) want to counteract this.
f.l.t.r: Memory Noise (oil on canvas, SB), In the Mood (video with sound, EKH), Red Noise (video with sound, EKH)
In this joint project, the artists want to explore the creative potential of a dialog between AI and traditional art techniques. As a thematic limitation and common thread, they deal with dreams as echo chambers of everyday experiences, memories and fears.
* * *
f.l.t.r: After the Noise 1 (ink on paper, SB), AI outputs after After the Noise 1 (digital, EKH)
Based on texts about their own dreams and memories, a text-to-image AI is “fed” with terms in order to visualize surreal scenes. These outputs serve as the basis for further processing with a traditional medium (e.g. drawing or painting), which in turn can become the initial image of an AI application, and so on. Like an echo, the various media relate to each other in terms of content and time and at the same time symbolize the idea of the echo chamber.
* * *
f.l.t.r: After the Noise 2 (ink on paper, SB), AI outputs after After the Noise 2 (digital, EKH)
The following works have been created so far:
A real existing space runs through a “what-if” of infinite possibilities, thought up by me, visualised by an artificial intelligence. This work was produced for the event “…WILL BE EATEN BY THE RAVENS” at the Stadttheater Neuburg a.d.Donau (16.06.2024). This video was accompanied by a live performance of the piece Nocturne by Lili Boulanger (for flute and harp).
2023,
18 polaroids ( selection),
each 9 x 10,5 cm,
signed and numbered,
Limited edition: 5 + 1AP, available.
Technological promise meets simulated evidence.
2023,
Video installation with sound, 6:07 min, AI-generated, cgi, animation,
mp4 file, 16:9 aspect ratio,
unique + 1AP,
Donated to St. Konrad Church in Augsburg-Bärenkeller.
The apple was and is highly symbolic in many cultures: be it as a symbol of eternal youth, eternal life, love, fertility, paradise and the fall of mankind.
In this installation, a golden apple floats in the air like a fixed star. Familiar places are reflected on its shiny surface (in the Bärenkeller district of Augsburg). How are people doing there and in the world?
In contrast, the two-dimensional portraits in this landscape appear strange. Who are these people? The Holy Family? Our neighbours? They never existed, but are the outputs of an artificial intelligence. We live in a time of upheaval. New technologies give us the feeling that we are increasingly losing control over truth and lies, over good and evil. Is this paradise on earth?
The apple hides a secret inside, because there is a small star made up of 5 seeds. It reminds us that our actions determine whether we come a little closer to “paradise on earth”.
The Installation
The site-specific video installation refers to the real space: church, district, city… by showing it as a digital mirror image, which in turn is reflected by the shiny surface of the golden apple. A kind of visual recursion in which reality and fiction, analog and digital merge.
Sandbox is on the one hand a sandy playground for children, on the other hand a term originating from software development for an “isolated area within which any action has no effect on the external environment”. (Wikipedia)
We are sitting in a large virtual sandbox that is anything but isolated. There are many toys in it that we don’t know what they are for. And new ones are added every day. We explore them playfully and in the process we come up with ideas – good or bad….
One such toy is Dall-e 2, one of the most celebrated AIs of 2022, which can create realistic images and even artwork from a text-based description in natural language. This creative act is new and unique, and must be judged as the next stage of evolution.
The works Dall-e generates are almost perfect, and yet she generates strangely disturbing outputs in response to seemingly innocuous keywords. It begs the question, is this the toy we would give our children?
2023,
33 Polaroids (selection),
each 9 x 10.5 cm,
Signed and numbered on the back,
unique, available.
Since the invention of the internet and social media in particular, our society has found itself in parallel realities: the analog, physical world and the virtual one. There, we are increasingly confronted with fake people and fake stories that have been perfected with the help of artificial intelligence. How can we counter a digital space that is dehumanized in every respect?
In this work, I bring together two things that don’t belong together: the Polaroid and the AI-generated fake human. For a long time, Polaroids embodied authenticity and uniqueness, because each photo was unique and captured a real moment in all its imperfection. But the scenes here, which look like baroque vanitas motifs, never existed. And yet the Polaroid as a medium lends this work something credible and truthful.
In this constellation, the vanitas idea “Remember that you are mortal” is given a surprising twist, which could come from the “mouth” of an artificial intelligence: “Remember that you are obsolet”.
Exhibition History (Selection):
2025 – 77. Great Swabian Art Exhibition, Augsburg, Glaspalast
2023 – House of New Realities, Augsburg, Vacancy in Bäckergasse
2023 – More Theater!, Ismaning, Schlosspavillon
2023 – Uncanny Valley // Das unheimliche Tal, Augsburg, Neue Galerie im Höhmannhaus
