Episode IV: Ilit Azoulay - "I'm not interested in producing clarity. I'm interested in creating conditions...

00:00:03: Welcome to Art Unquoted.

00:00:05: I am Isenia Benin

00:00:07: and I'm Charlotte de Saga.

00:00:09: We are two Berlin-based art professionals who think that in a world of noise revealing things can sometimes be found in few words.

00:00:20: In each episode we take single quote, see where it leads us.

00:00:24: This is Spark & Friction!

00:00:36: Welcome back to ArtUnquoted.

00:00:40: I'm not interested in producing clarity.

00:00:42: I am interested in creating conditions where complexity can exist without being

00:00:47: reduced.".

00:00:48: This is our quote today and it's by Illid Azulay, connected to an exhibition that unsettled and inspired Asenia immediately but maybe different ways?

00:01:00: Well let see!

00:01:01: We just visited her exhibition at Wile Stuck & Munich.

00:01:05: The artist presented a video installation and photographic works.

00:01:09: Azula is known for investigation on how institutions construct identity and knowledge through a research-based archival practice.

00:01:18: Yeah, she used AI the first time as tool to her video piece.

00:01:23: in that context I think thought by Trevor Packlin from his new book How To See Like A Machine might be helpful to explore this work further.

00:01:33: He argues that AI doesn't just represent reality.

00:01:37: it activates it.

00:01:39: Machines don't just show us what's there, they create whats'there.

00:01:43: They generate new possibilities and new realities.

00:01:46: And I think in Azela's work this is what happening.

00:01:51: The seventy-seven AI actresses aren't just representations of Mary There are activations, prompts that generate new versions her into being

00:02:01: Very interesting.

00:02:03: I'm not quite sure.

00:02:04: I agree with that framing, yes AI generates images but does it mean its generating reality or is it just generating convincing simulations?

00:02:15: i do think there's a difference and am NOT quite sure that Puglin's concept fully captures what experience in the exhibition.

00:02:22: yeah well fair enough.

00:02:23: let start with context.

00:02:25: Mary Stuck was born in eighteen hundred ninety-six.

00:02:29: She is the center figure of Aserleis exhibition, no single view.

00:02:33: and she was illegitimate daughter of a well known German painter Franz von Stuck who lived an work immuneic in the villa bearing his name A beautiful neoclassical building with incredible art and volunteers And today it's museum In nineteen hundred four.

00:02:50: after illegal process Mary was formally adopted by Franz and his wife and after Franz von Stuck died, Mary returned to Wielerssturck with her own family.

00:02:58: And she lived there for like decades until nineteen hundred sixty-one... ...and so she was through the twentieth century.

00:03:05: She witnessed how it transformed from an art studio into a museum….

00:03:09: …from private home to public

00:03:11: space.".

00:03:12: So in that way she connects past and present – privates then public?

00:03:18: Now Azulay is bringing her back not as memory but also question And I think that's so intriguing, yet i am skeptical of the philosophical framing.

00:03:29: is Mary at

00:03:45: a different age and the artists engage?

00:03:57: seventy-seven different AI generated actresses, each performing their character differently.

00:04:05: And this where Patron's philosophical thoughts about images in the Age of AI become relevant because these aren't identical representations.

00:04:16: There are activations and prompts that generate new versions of her.

00:04:20: New possibilities, maybe new truths...

00:04:23: But thats why I have to push back!

00:04:24: I don't think they're generating a new truth…I think their revealing something in pieces..something always true about Mary That she was always fragmented.

00:04:34: multiple version each one constructed.

00:04:38: You know, the eye doesn't create that fragmentation to me.

00:04:41: It just helps you make the invisible visible.

00:04:45: Yeah Yes and no.

00:04:46: And I think your right That the multiplicity has always existed.

00:04:50: But the AI does something else.

00:04:53: Um it refuses a single version of Mary It refuses The archive with fixed identity.

00:04:59: In that refusal it generates Something new A counter-archive A web Of possibilities instead of a singular truth.

00:05:07: Okay, I see where you're going but i experienced something different in the room.

00:05:37: But because I was confronted with impossibility of knowing or understanding her completely.

00:05:42: Yeah, and that's exactly what the work does.

00:05:45: it forces you to face that impossibility.

00:05:48: And in that confrontation something happens.

00:05:51: You realize that identity isn't fixed.

00:05:54: That memory Isn't reliable and their truth is always layered.

00:05:59: and i mean before you had To use your imagination to picture these different versions Of Mary.

00:06:04: Now, you can concretely see them.

00:06:06: Seventy-seven different marries and imagination made concrete.

00:06:13: but we've also lost something the space where imagination lived?

00:06:16: The freedom to imagine her differently.

00:06:19: But that's probably a completely different topic.

00:06:22: Yeah I think were saying similar things from different angles.

00:06:26: You're coming at it philosophically And i'm coming at emotionally.

00:06:31: I do think both are valid, the work operates on both levels.

00:06:34: Yeah absolutely and... And on top of everything it's not just intellectual!

00:06:39: It is really physical because in that exhibition you stand in Mary's bedroom.

00:06:45: You see an AI-Mary on screen but also standing where the real Mary slept like eight years ago Where she lived her life.

00:06:54: The artificial and the real are in same space at the same time.

00:06:58: Its kind of vertical.

00:07:00: Yeah, that vertigo is real.

00:07:02: And I think that's what Azulize.

00:07:04: after not clarity and answers She wants to make us doubt What we think We know.

00:07:11: And also the technical limitation Is brilliant.

00:07:13: The AI can't remember.

00:07:15: It only holds information for eight seconds After which it forgets kind of.

00:07:20: That forgetting is important quality in this.

00:07:23: Mary can't be fixed into one version of herself.

00:07:27: She Can't Be Reduced to One Truth, she exists only in split moments.

00:07:33: and these artificial reconstructions

00:07:37: How interesting and fascinating.

00:07:39: it's as if the technical limitations became very artistic concept entirely And that makes this work even more convincing.

00:07:48: It's again not just about Mary, it encompasses all of us.

00:07:52: We're all constructed we are all fragmented with multiple versions ourselves and the eye makes that visible concretely.

00:08:00: Yeah

00:08:01: I agree one can for sure say so!

00:08:04: And forgetting isn't a metaphor or memory but how to construct ourselfs.

00:08:10: Mary exists only in the moment of viewing.

00:08:13: you cannot see the same Mary twice Each time you watch, your watching a different one.

00:08:18: Another version of the truth.

00:08:20: and that's exactly what Peglan means.

00:08:22: The AI doesn't represent Mary.

00:08:25: it prompts new versions off her into B.

00:08:30: I still think there is a difference between activation and revelation, but i do understand what you're saying.

00:08:36: And the work operates again on both levels it generates and it uncovers!

00:08:42: That's why this works strong and simultaneously rather vulnerable

00:08:47: in that tension... ...in the embrace of complexity.

00:08:52: Given all that?

00:08:53: The work is visually conceptually quite stunning.

00:08:56: Yes very much.

00:08:58: And coming back to Arsela's quote, I'm not interested in producing clarity.

00:09:03: I am interested in creating conditions where complexity can exist without being

00:09:09: reduced.".

00:09:10: Absolutely!

00:09:11: And viewing her work at Wielersstuk... ...I find that it came true….

00:09:16: …I couldn't agree more on her statements.

00:09:18: Yeah

00:09:19: me neither.

00:09:21: Thank you for listening to Art Uncorted.

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00:09:39: and We will be back soon with more ideas to unpack.

00:09:42: thanks for listening.