#conceptual #surreal #cryptonative
Man-handled LeWitt is a AI generated series compiled by artist Josh Race, portraying his experience acting out instructions to create a Sol LeWitt style wall sculpture in the List Visual Arts Center at MIT. But first, some context.
Sol LeWitt, an American pioneer of conceptual art (1928-2007), insisted that role of an artists is that of a thinker, designing their work, instead of performing the craftwork to make the art object. LeWitt made all of his compositional decisions before the work was created physically. In 1967 he wrote, “The idea becomes the machine that makes the art.” And LeWitt let assistants work as the arms and hands of his machines.
As a young budding Mass Art SIM program student Josh had the incredible opportunity to participate in a unique event at the List, where he was tasked with creating a mystery work live in the gallery. It was revealed he would be creating a Sol LeWitt artwork by attaching pieces of fabric to a a wire mesh that was affixed to the wall.
At first, Josh was thrilled to generate the conceptual work. But as he began working on the artwork, his excitement faded. He felt as though his genuine enthusiasm was being taken advantage of and that he was just going through the motions. Even though the concept sounded grand, the actual artwork didn't fit well within the gallery space. The result was a piece that looked out of place, and didn’t portray any manner of pleasing aesthetic.
Years later, while working with AI, Josh recalled this event. He chose to reinterpret the experience by creating AI-generated images based on text descriptions.
This series of images he produced encapsulate the absurdity of ‘machining’ a work by hand, live in a gallery setting. It highlights both the lack of control and the comedic aspect of such an endeavor.
It would seem LeWitt, a shy artist who avoided the limelight, was pointing to something beyond aesthetic. Perhaps his point is that we undervalue the mental exploration of a creative process and overvalue the skill.
However, the human experience of executing artistic commands in a machine-like way is not devoid of exploratory thought and emotion. How does LeWitt account for these losses?
“The body is our general medium for having a world.” - Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Art is more than thought alone. Many artists create objects for the sake of memorializing thoughts and feelings. Could LeWitt be asking those who run his ‘machines’ to attribute their creative thoughts to his orignal work, as Josh has done here afterall.
In Josh's AI generated series, the AI models train on our human outputs, and not on the concept. There is no thought. There is no concept. LeWitt might say, there is no art here. AI only deduces the concept without context.
But where is the source of art? Can we accept a reconstituted experience - AI as concept? Isn’t it salient? Phenomenologists like Merleau-Ponty might say we only have art after it’s been acknolwedged as such, and when it has generated significance in our body and mind.
Prompted by strange AI outputs, Josh was led to long forgotten memories of his LeWitt’ian experience. His text prompts explore the relationship between people within a golden frame and others outside of it, which generated the following vignettes.
Individual 1 of 1 NFTs fo these acts area available here on Highlight.xyz
Man-handled LeWitt by zenmaker on Optimism
"Man-handled LeWitt" is artist Josh Race's AI-generated series, capturing his memory of acting out a Sol LeWitt wall sculputure at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in 1997. Sol LeWitt, the pioneering American conceptual artist, redefined artistry as a visionary thinker, with assistants executing his concepts.
Thank you for your patronage!
You are also invited to collect this article.