Will this dive into ‘scoptophillia’ replace LAMELLA://? I asked the same question in my previous blog about another variation, a short video, which may or may not have ended up in the LAMELLA:// universe. (It did, incidentally. I showed it beside the ten meter print I made as part of that project for my graduation show at Central St Martins. However, I was never sure it worked; neither its placing nor size, and it always felt sort of tagged on).
To create the image below, I started asking the AI machine (any one of them will do, I do not have a favourite) to look at the work it had made throughout my LAMELLA:// play, to re-ingest it, then regurgitate. There have been plenty of articles online about AI, but one that I will have to go back and find is about how AI might stall if it keeps eating itself. I read this after making the first few images that emerged in the latest stage of my ongoing inquiry, but before pausing, while I focused on the show. However, I recently re-read the The scoptophilic instinct and identification by Otto Fenichel (1999; pp.327–339), which I was asked to read several years ago when I first started studying, and which inspired the process of re-ingesting.
This image is currently the only one I feel attached to in a series of experiments and called Ingested for now.
There is a LOT to work with in the few pages I have access to. But towards the end, there is a passage which stood out – and I wonder if we can replace the word camera with AI processing in the following sentence:
“… man’s mechanical ingenuity has actually created a ‘devouring eye’, which looks at and incorporates the external world and later projects it outwards again. I refer of course to the camera.” (pp.337)
Fenichel also explores the sense of shame a child feels when it sees ‘too much’ and I wonder about this and the machine we’re ‘birthing’ and the projected collective shame we are handing it to carry.
I feel like I should stick with this, although I have no idea for now where it will go. I have asked a few peers to read the text too, and let me know their thoughts. Perhaps I shall have more to say or show in the next blog I write…
Fenichel, O. (1999) ‘The scoptophillic instinct and identification’ In: Evans, J. and Hall, S. (eds.) Visual culture: the reader. London ; Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications in association with the Open University. pp.327–339.