We are surrounded by things, tools, gadgets and a myriad of man-made objects. A typical household could contain thousands of items. In contrast to prehistoric men, we would not be able to carry all of our belongings with us. We are accustomed to all these objects so much that we do not even actively notice them on a daily basis. However, when the features of daily life objects are reduced to generic forms and textures, we lose the familiarity associated with them and start to question the building blocks of our closest surroundings.
The intention of the project is to create new artificial life forms from the stillness of common objects reacting to the sounds of nature as if these synthetic creations were a part of natural life in an alternative world and environment.
I created Synthetic Still Life by training a generative adversarial network on the collection of images gathered specifically for the project. The photographs included in the training set consist of still objects made from mostly human-made materials.
Using a red light source I photographed objects that I could find in my surroundings - water glasses, cups, vases, forks, doorknobs, and handles. The artificial light used for illumination emphasizes the contrast between synthetic objects and naturally occurring living entities.
The project reflects about the interference of technology into nature and how it shapes future civilisation. When the expiration time on things is due we throw them away and leave them to degrade for centuries. We are increasingly aware of the danger such a lifestyle poses on the environment but nonetheless the changes are sometimes too difficult and uncomfortable to make.
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The visual forms of synthetic objects clash with nature recordings and provoke uncanny feelings.