Poetic Science

In this body of work, we are questioning our past, present, and future relationship with technology. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the newest technology to redefine our world. We have chosen AI as a partner in this adventure, creating large-scale tableaus from multiple images generated with word prompts. Creating visual images with words is like writing poetry, except that our AI partner sometimes hallucinates. The technology is in its infancy, naïve, and learning. It hides hands like a beginning art student and when there are hands they look like sausages or have too many fingers. Sometimes knees bend the wrong way or arms have too many elbows. We embrace these hallucinations and find them a unique part of this moment.

The WPA is an artistic collaboration between Mark Penland and René West. Both of us have created collages since we could hold a pair of scissors. Collectively we are fluent in photography, digital imaging, and mixed media. By working with juxtaposition, narrative, and ambiguity we create visual metaphors in a wide variety of mediums.

The alliance started in 2023 when a feral cat with a broken paw abruptly changed our plans. At the time we were both researching AI and how to generate images using prompts instead of cameras. When we first started using AI, our primary interest was creating a finished piece with one set of prompts. However, that approach presented two distinct problems. The first was technical. Images generated with AI are low resolution and too small for exhibition. The second was philosophical. Are the images we create ours? After thinking about it, we realized the best approach would be to generate images for the purpose of collaging large-scale tableaus out of the AI images.