R3C1

Row 3 Column 1 ⬛ 7/9 in the RXCX series ⬛ sprice.studio/rxcx ⬛ The “Row X Column X” (RXCX) series is an ongoing nine-part set of animated collages created with human and computer pareidolia as an artistic tool. This initiative began as a collaboration with Harvard’s Ponce Neuroscience Lab during my BFA thesis. ⬛ After suspending the creation of an original painting at an initial, abstract stage, a neural network was tasked with interpreting the work, generating images informed by different sections of the piece. The outputs were curated by an audience from their perceived relation to the original. These selections informed further rounds of imagery, which I collaged into a parallel artwork. ⬛ During the process, participants often described the outputs as “paintings of their own,” a eureka moment that inspired the next stage of this project—my endeavor to collage these images together into dynamic landscapes of perception. ⬛ My process for building these collages can best be described as a reverse puzzle, where the look of the pieces guide what I decide the image will become. The results mirror the appearance of space photography, in which massive pictures of the most distant features we can measure are assembled into larger, coherent images. Nothing is darker than space. Exploring it parallels the creative process, as both are acts of drawing out clarity from an ambiguous background. ⬛ We may have evolved pareidolia to build adaptive associations with uncertain landscapes. However, future means of creative expression will increasingly allow us to reverse this equation — perhaps one day enabling us to fabricate environments from our minds in real time. ⬛ RXCX explores how art and technology increasingly converge in this aim. In particular, I embrace the beautiful, uncanny moments of information loss that emerge amidst attempts to visualize thought through digital augmentation. Learn more about RXCX on sprice.studio/rxcx.