2021

How Much is DDV's Doggie in the Window?

Since Monday 8 November 2021 Belgian artist Danny Devos aka DDV has been generating prosimetra from daily events picked from his Birth(+)Fact(x)Death(-)Calendar on Blogspot. Each prosimetrum is generated by means of a text-generation API (Application Programming Interface) based on the GPT-2 model by OpenAI. Each prosimetrum originates from an undisputable fact on a certain date in history that happened on the publication date of the said prosimetrum. The original text copied from the Birth(+)Fact(x)Death(-)Calendar is the edge of the abyss from which DDV plummets into datasets that include Wikipedia articles, transcribed speech, popular fiction and government reports, among other sources, using 1.5 billion parameters. Every prosimetrum outcome can be read as a fictional news report, experimental poetry or prose in the cut-up tradition discovered by Brion Gysin and William Burroughs in the Beat Hotel in Paris on Sunday 20 September 1959. The pair later applied the technique to printed media and audio recordings in an effort to decode the material's implicit content, hypothesizing that such a technique could be used to discover the true meaning of a given text. Burroughs also suggested cut-ups may be effective as a form of divination saying, "When you cut into the present the future leaks out."

By using another OpenAI API DDV takes things one step further. The text-generated prosimetrum is fed into an image-generation API that builds a photomontage from datasets that include Wikipedia commons, uploaded snaphots, popular fiction and science report, among other sources, using 12 billion parameters. Every photomontage outcome results in realistic anthropomorphized versions of dogs. These generated images can be seen as artworks in the photomontage tradition such as "Indische Tänzerin", "Russische Tanzerin" or "Lady Dada" by Dada pioneer Hannah Höch, dubbed “art's original punk” by The Guardian on Saturday 1 November 2014.

The first 100 generated realistic AI anthropomorphized photomontage versions of dogs, posted on Blogspot from 8 November 2021 to 24 December 2021 are now available as a strictly limited 'DDV's Doggie Blanket' edition. The 100 photomontages are printed on one side of a double 400g/m2 fleece layer. On the back size is a full list with the names of the people involved in the prosimetra used to generate the photomontages.
Limited edition is four + one Artist's Proof.

 


Double 400g/m2 fleece layer, 150cm x 150cm x 1cm.
Property of the artist.


Shown at:
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