Forms

Is a hot dog a sandwich? No? What exactly is a sandwich then? Can you define it? It's a silly question, sure, but one that doubles as a serious thought experiment. Where are the bounds of any category? How do they form? Plato posited the existence of "Forms", abstracted ideal versions of the things and concepts we encounter in the world. It's from them that all categories descend. The Form of the circle is the pure idea of the circle. The Form of the dog is that dog-ness that binds all dogs.

AI models, encoding the world's knowledge as mathematical abstractions, might be seen as a kind of technologically-enabled lens into this Platonic realm. Forms examines this idea, manipulating an image model to reveal its pure conception of the subjects depicted here. Normally, image models use random visual noise (like TV static) as a starting point from which to sculpt their outputs. The images in Forms were created by taking that random noise away, forcing the model to craft images from a blank slate. Each piece, then, shows its subject as the model sees it in a void, unencumbered by the arbitrary particularities of random noise.

What do we see when granted this "view from nowhere"? Does such a thing exist? Have we emerged from Plato's cave, or are we really just seeing more shadows on its walls? Skepticism is warranted. So is hope—that even if we aren't seeing true Forms, we might still harness technology to see something beyond ourselves.

Forms was released with Galerie Data in Paris in February 2025 as part of a group show curated by ClownVamp.