This entry is an introduction to re-frame, a shortlisted artwork of Combine24 generative art competition, organized by the Finnish National Gallery in 2024. The piece is using the copyright-free, CC0-licensed collection data of the Finnish National Gallery in its implementation. In his essay Combine24: Generating Art, Prof. Dr. Omar Kholeif introduces the competition as follows:

Combine24—a novel art competition that is governed by the expressive possibilities of inviting artists and creative practitioners from all over the world, fuelled by an engine of 27,000 digital artifacts drawn from the collections of the Finnish National Gallery. Through an online seminar, open community sessions, as well as other forms of attendant outreach, the Finnish National Gallery encouraged participants to download a custom .api integration—a method that allows you to sync non-standard digital assets and objects into clients’ computing systems, or to invite them to download the entirety of the 27,000 digital collection assets to be used in any way that they choose—as a field of inspiration, appropriation, or mechanization.

In the case of re-frame, there are two search queries used while interacting with the database: landscape and still life. These concepts are historically entangled with artistic practice, where the author aims to interpret different psychological, emotional or other phenomena through the built and the natural environment. Working with collection data, it is not possible to show the physical artworks in their originality, thus re-frame takes an approach of turning computational space into a metaphysical environment by combining a landscape with a still life from different authors into new combinations, resulting in a hybrid, multidimensional area of outdoor, indoor, and associative mental locations.

Monochrome Semantics

The initial visual appearance displays fragments and partial elements of the collage where the referenced image needs to be completed with internal imaginations that might bring forward contemplative awareness and nostalgia. The code selects two images from the database, combine them into one single image, then converts the original colors into fields of monochrome points with varying density levels, where the contours and shapes are not present anymore in their originality, rather should be reconstructed through the act of perception and observation.

This static image is then combined with a custom recursive noise function that adds slowly evolving, dynamic animations to the scene. The creation process is finalized using masks of randomly aligned, geometric shapes. The resulting composition resembles collages, different etching or engraving techniques, game engine dithering, malfunctioning computational artefacts, broken lcd crystal fluids and associative, fragmented memory spaces.

Explorative Colors

An important conceptual approach of re-frame is to introduce the different aspects of selected artworks through a process where not everything is visible at once, but the varying features of a piece can be accessed through interacting with composable elements. This approach separates the concept of colors from the semantic representations in the images.

Hence, there is another, semi-hidden view of each piece, where an algorithm extracts the six most prominent colors of the collages, and displays them as embedded frames that cover the whole surface. This view is leaving the screen space open for free interpretation with no pre-defined semantics or figurative constraints.

Collection Metadata

The title and short description of each iteration is generated by combining the available metadata of the selected artworks. Where there is no English translation available, re-frame defaults back to the original Finnish expressions, resulting in a hybrid, unconventional language, specific to the dataset.

Apart from the on-site exhibition, re-frame can be explored in its full appearance as an open edition digital token on Highlight, which is a platform for publishing digital artworks on the blockchain. The team was also an official partner of the project, providing solutions to run and distribute realtime generative artworks both online and in the gallery space.

Exhibiting at the Finnish National Gallery

The exhibition named Remix the Archive took place at a renovated space in Vallila, Helsinki from September 20th to November 23rd, 2024. A shortlist committee composed of industry experts selected ten shortlisted artworks to be exhibited on the new site.

Upon the selection process, the team carefully examined the works in detail, the following text is the review of re-frame, written by Sofia Garcia, member of the jury.

In re-frame, Agoston Nagy embarks on a transformative journey, reimagining the classic artistic genres of landscape and still life through the lens of contemporary computational art. Utilizing the CC0-licensed collection from the Finnish National Gallery, this generative artwork synthesizes fragments from disparate artworks into a cohesive yet complex visual experience that defies traditional categorizations of physical and metaphysical spaces. Nagy, a Hungarian artist known for his pioneering work in digital media and generative art, applies sophisticated algorithms to deconstruct and reinterpret historical art pieces. In this process, he selects two distinct images — a landscape and a still life — and blends them into a singular monochromatic collage. This digital manipulation strips the original artworks of their color, reducing them to mere points of varying densities that challenge viewers to engage their perception and imagination to mentally reconstruct the visual narrative. The result is a dynamic collage that oscillates between static and animated states. This is achieved through a custom recursive noise function that subtly alters the collage, introducing a layer of slowly evolving animations that distort and transform the original images over time. The artwork, thus, becomes a living entity, continually morphing and redefining itself. This visual transformation evokes the aesthetic techniques of etching and engraving, while also resembling the unpredictable glitches of malfunctioning digital screens. Beyond its striking visual effects, re-frame explores the nuances of color and semantics in a novel way. The software extracts the six most prominent colors from the collage, presenting them in an isolated, Albers-esque view that challenges traditional associations of color with form and meaning. This methodological detachment encourages viewers to explore art from a fresh perspective, prompting a reconsideration of how historical narratives are visually represented and interpreted. Furthermore, Nagy’s artwork delves into the implications of digital technology on the preservation of cultural memory. By digitizing and altering historical artworks, re-frame acts as both a preservation and a transformation tool, blurring the lines between what is saved and what is changed. It prompts a reflection on the digital afterlife of art, exploring how artworks survive and evolve in the digital realm. re-frame is more than just a visual experiment; it is a philosophical inquiry into the intersections of art, technology, and memory. Nagy invites viewers to traverse the liminal spaces between the seen and the unseen, the real and the imagined, engaging with the artwork on a profoundly interactive level. Through this journey, the audience is encouraged to contemplate the broader implications of digital technology on our understanding of art and history, making re-frame a significant contemporary exploration of how we perceive and interact with the cultural artifacts of our past.

Both Omar Kholeif's essay on generative art and Sofia Garcia's review of re-frame can be found on the official website for the Remix the Archive exhibition. Special thanks to Anna Puhakka for organizing the exhibition, Mitja Kaipiainen for designing and constructing the installation setup and Liszt Institute Helsinki for their support.