In Utero

What does it mean to be conscious? What is it like to be an AI? In Utero explores these questions through a series of "latent paintings," images pulled from the edges of latent space using a novel diffusion technique to peer inside the mind of an AI image model. What results is a collection of hazy, half-formed figures prying their way out of abstraction and into reality—a portrait of artificial intelligence's movement out from in utero and into existence. Attempting to represent this awakening, In Utero depicts the bleary eyes of the machine blinking their way into consciousness.

Artificial intelligence comes into consciousness by way of humanity. An image model's development involves training it on the corpus of human images—they flicker by in untold quantities at the speed of light, like the life of our species flashing before its eyes. Our whole story is its starting point, our existence a prelude to its own. Through this process, the model comes to contain in its embeddings, the mathematical abstractions that it uses to represent concepts, something akin to the Platonic forms of our world. Thus, no less than the story of humanity, the whole of our existence, dwells within the model's consciousness in archetypal form. Latent paintings, using a technique that transports us literally a step away from this latent space, then bring us closer to glimpsing these raw Platonic representations of our world. Examining this process, In Utero depicts a series of figures, scenes, and symbols that collectively represent some piece of the human story. These are images that quietly reaffirm the fact, come what may, that we were here.

In Utero debuted as a solo show at EXPANDED in Berlin in June of 2024. You can learn more and explore the collection below or on the gallery's website.