Cybernetic Futures
Online Art Exhibitions
Infinite Techno-Selves
Machine Faced
By Romina Rahnamoun
Artist Statement - Machine-Faced
By Romina Rahnamoun
Machine-Faced explores the dynamic relationship between human identity and computational transformation through self-portraits distorted by generative AI models. In my practice, I use these models as tools for form exploration, akin to the process of sketching. The AI-generated distortions provide a generative space where I can push and pull at the boundaries of the self, discovering new possibilities that challenge my initial perceptions.
These works are not simply products of digital manipulation; they represent a dialogue between my personal identity and the evolving algorithms. Each distortion reintroduces ideas and aesthetic directions I may not have anticipated, leading me to rediscover my concepts through the lens of machine learning. The result is a reimagining of selfhood that is both personal and yet, in its transformation, becomes something unfamiliar.
The series is rooted in my self-portraits, with the AI's interventions shifting the familiar into something new, almost uncanny. At times, I further manipulate the images with AI artifacts in the post-processing stages, enhancing their abstraction and depth.
In Machine-Faced, the face—an iconic symbol of identity—is abstracted and reformed, inviting the viewer to question the essence of selfhood in a world increasingly shaped by technology. Through these algorithmically altered portraits, I explore how the digital tools we use shape not only the images we create but the very ideas of who we are.
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Artist Statement
by Romina Rahnamoun
My practice as a visual artist unfolds at the intersection of technology and artistic exploration, where machine learning and large language models become extensions of creative thought. I am drawn to the concept of the artificial gaze, using it as a lens to deconstruct and reimagine the familiar boundaries of lens-based art, challenging the visual and conceptual frameworks that define our ways of seeing.
In this interplay between human intuition and machine logic, I find a rich dialogue—one that reflects the tensions and harmonies of innovation. I approach algorithms not as passive tools but as active collaborators, co-creating works that blur the lines between control and spontaneity, tradition and disruption. By embracing the speculative and transformative potential of these methodologies, my work seeks to question entrenched epistemologies of image-making while imagining new, fluid ways of understanding art in a world increasingly mediated by technology.
Sitting with myself in the Metaverse
By Nicola Bertoglio
Artist Statement by Nicola Bertoglio
I intended the video in question as a video performance in which I compared a 3D avatar created by me with my appearance using the AI software of the UnionAvatars.com website with a close-up of my face within a virtual environment created in the Oncyber.io platform.
​My real face and the artificial one of my avatar seem to weave a silent dialogue. It is a metaphor for my artistic research that is also an instrument of self-awareness.