PROMPT-SCAPE

 Prompt-Scape Gouache on paper 28 x 32cm 2025

This image of Prompt-Scape (above) is a photographic documentation of a real painting, not an AI generated image erroneously called a 'painting.' Prompt-Scape visually reveals the plunder that a prompt to generate an image or text triggers. I use the word trigger deliberately! Is a prompt like a trigger, setting into motion algorithmic processes that target data to detect the statistical correlations most likely to produce what has been prompted/triggered?

I'll let you all have some fun thinking about this painting. I don't think I need to write much more about it! I will, however, leave two provocations.

1. Can the concept of surrender help us think about life in the age of AI? My article Surrendering to 'Too Powerful' technologies: From the F-111 to the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Drone' in Media, War, and Conflict journal.

2. In September I gave a seminar War in Our Hyperconnected World: Exposing the Invisible Battlespace, for colleagues in the School of Communication and Arts, and the University of Queensland, Australia. Below is one of my slides from the talk. Like Prompt-Scape it channels ideas of targeting in the Earth-to-satellite environment. The painting in the slide is Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction (2022). 

Here's a quote about Theatre of War: Techno-Seduction from my PhD thesis Drones, Signals, and the Techno-Colonisation of Landscape (2023). 

"The painted zeros and ones disembody the organic and strip the non-organic by visually reducing them to the same instructional code. This visual reduction to equivalence exposes insidious relationships, questions forces of techno-homogenisation, and raises issues of aesthetic homogenisation in an age of increasing generative AI."

Cheers,

Kathryn

 

ME: PORTRAITURE IN THE AGE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION

ME: 01001101 01000101 Oil on linen 92 x 112 cm 2021

 

ME is a self-portrait. It is a painted self-portrait. It visually parodies facial recognition computer graphics.*

IDENTITY & VERIFICATION
For me, my defining features are my very blue eyes, and my long hair which I wear in a loose, often messy, bun. Despite these defining features appearing in the portrait, further confirmation that ME is me is given with a verification tick generated by facial recognition technology. This is corroborated by the binary code 'instructing' the word ME. I ask, are we heading for a future history where identity is verified only by AI and coding? If identity verification is ubiquitously provided by technology, will human beings stop looking - and - seeing? Maybe - think about the way contemporary motor vehicles have smaller windows, especially at the rear, than years ago. We don't need to look - or see - when sensors are embedded! This is what I have been told by many car salespeople. 

In a world of digital imaging, facial recognition and biometric scanning, this painted self-portrait is possibly not verifiably me, simply because it is a painting and not a computer graphic, generated by facial recognition technology. Which has more authority, a painted self-portrait or a computer generated image? In the age of fakeness, I think the painted self-portrait certainly has authority! As a painting, my self portrait is untethered from reliance on algorithms, signals and an energy source [battery, electrical]. It exists as an independent unit, unconnected and not networked. As a painting, I think it is defiant in the face of such technology!

Are we in danger of being defined and verified by surveillance photography and digital scanning? Given questions around using AI to detect emotions, I think this is a key question, among many. Check out this short article about this topic, by Kate Crawford, in Nature 

PORTRAITURE
As I painted ME I wondered what might happen to portraiture in the age of facial recognition. Will painting survive as a human activity? Will paintings by human beings be influenced by pervasive technologically synchronised and homogenised aesthetics? What might happen to artists who don't fall into the influence of aesthetic homogenisation?

My gambit, with ME, is visual parody.

DRONE
And, for regular readers, there is a drone! The airborne drone gives a clue that facial recognition is being used to monitor my behaviour, identify my person, document my whereabouts. But, there is another way to look at this! As a painting, in reality, you and I have the drone under surveillance, its signaling exposed, and its connection to insidious surveillance revealed. That this information cannot be tracked, hacked, modified or datafied - because it is a painting -  may be scurrilous...how delightful! 

I think this self-portrait says a lot, and more, about ME!  

* Is It Me? is another self-portrait you might like to see and read about.

Cheers,

Kathryn

HUMAN: Recognition, Identification, Targeting

HUMAN Oil on linen 31 x 36 cm 2019

In both these paintings, HUMAN  and Where to Hide? (below), I play with ideas of algorithmic human identification, and reasons for this identification. Clearly, as the cross-hairs indicate, I am thinking about targeting. However, reasons for targeting can range from orders to kill, to targeting by entities such as advertisers, pollsters, corporations, and governments. These seemingly benign entities target to seduce buyers, persuade voters, and to muster people into standardised behaviour [particularly online]. In this interconnected and networked age, the data that is collected, however, could/can be used to aid identification and targeting for more deadly purposes.

In both paintings I have appropriated the appearance of a computer screen or lens, giving a sense of removal from the scene eg: similar to remote airborne drone operations. But, is the operator human or machine? The algorithm of binary code 'instructing' HUMAN at the bottom of each painting references the use of machine learning to assist in target identification. Global debates about whether autonomous systems should go further and make the ultimate 'kill' decision have regularly occurred since 2013, eg: CCW at UNOG. However, politics and the law, are fast outpaced by enhancements in technological applications and systems developments.

HUMAN/HUMAN BEING
I purposefully did not 'instruct' in binary code the words HUMAN BEING because I wanted the single word HUMAN to suggest that algorithms identify using data-derived characteristics of humankind. While individuals are certainly targets, humanity is also in the cross-hairs, but do we realise it? Also, while individuals are targeted standardisation of characteristics leads to biases and mistakes, and the possibility of further standardisation. Could standardisation could pose a an existential threat?

TREE-OF-LIFE
I have painted the shadows of the seemingly targeted figures as trees-of-life. For me this indicates things the algorithm cannot access, like imagination and dreams. Each tree-shadow is an individual, representing life in all its array of personal and ancestral history, biology, spirit and soul. Can these all be reduced to data?

But, the tree-of-life represents another kind of 'code' of life, one that also speaks to humanity as a whole. The tree-of-life with its array of branches, twigs and leaves, stands in contrast with the zeros and ones. I am reminded of Jean Baudrillard's observation about a digital destiny where it will be "possible to measure everything by the same extremely reductive yardstick: the binary, the alternation between 0 and 1". (1) Here, standardisation can be viewed as a reductive process to enable the kind of measurement Baudrillard suggests. The tree stands as a resolute beacon of hope!

LANDSCAPE
HUMAN and Where to Hide? are part of my ongoing quest to represent landscape in ways that pose questions about humanity's future and the planet's future. I  think about computer graphics, imaging technology, invisible signals and undersea cables that enable networked operations. Are inter-connectivity and networking processes examples of standardisation? Is targeting made easier in a world netted by militarised and militarise-able signals that perhaps perpetuate standardisation? Is there anywhere to hide in a standardised environment?

There is more to say, but I will leave that up to you.

Cheers,
Kathryn

---

[1] Jean Baudrillard, Passwords, trans. Chris Turner (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 76.

Where to Hide? Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm 2019

PAINTED ALGORITHMS

 Coded Landscape Gouache on paper 15 x 21 cm 2015

Recently an AI generated portrait "Portrait of Edmond Belamy" was sold at Christies for nearly 45 times the expected amount. The work sold for over $400,000. You can read about it on Christies' site HERE . A collective called Obvious is behind the production. This is the first time an AI generated artwork has sold at a major public auction. The portrait and the sale have generated a lot of discussion [do Google it]. The fact that the product was promoted and sold by Christies certainly assisted its worthiness as news, and perceived value.

The AI program was fed "with a data set of 15,000 portraits painted between the 14th century to the 20th." (1) From my understanding, machine learning processes detected patterns in formal portrait characteristics. These then assisted the program to formulate a portrait which is meant to look human-made. This end-product is then printed onto a canvas. 

If you Google 'AI portrait', 'Portrait of Edmond Belamy' or other searches, you will find more information. You can then make your own critical judgments.


PAINTED ALGORITHMS
For a few years I have included painted algorithms, albeit simple ones, in my paintings. In this post I present a selection of these paintings, including some posthuman figures/portraits.

                                              Unseen Oil on linen 90 x 80 cm 2015

Strings of 'instructional' binary code help me form my paintings. These strings introduce colour, contour, shape, but they are also subject matter, complex subject matter. For example, binary code instructing the word LIFE forms the landscape contour in Coded Landscape [top]. Subject matter is multi-faceted - code, landscape, life. As a landscape, LIFE, depicted in code, poses questions about life in the era of the algorithm, the age of simulation - the 21st century. What is real and what is not real? 

Unseen [above] depicts a tree of life, one branch cascading around the canvas. This branch is a string of colourful binary code repeating the word LIFE. That instructional code is normally invisible is the key to this painting [in fact all of my 'code' paintings]. In Unseen, I have exposed code by hand-painting it in multiple colours. Each zero and one is different, not perfect. Human touch and gesture presents a subversive exposure! Rather than pretending to be human made, it actually is!

In Combat Proven, Long Range, Long Dwell [below], painted binary code for LIFE is targeted by an airborne weaponised drone. The drone's signals, exposed as radiating lines, detect and target LIFE. But, there is a twist, is LIFE easily targeted because so much of it relies on digital devices, cyber networking, online services and so on? The Grey Eagle drone is 'decorated' with binary code 'instructing' DRONE. Again, what is real, what is simulated, what is unreal?

Combat Proven, Long Range, Long Dwell Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2016

CODED POSTHUMAN FIGURES AND PORTRAITS

My Future Post Human Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

A portrait as a question mark?

"So - in My Future Posthuman I've painted a figure with tree-like appendages, a multicoloured heart and a head shaped like a question mark - but the question mark is formed from two rows of binary code 'instructing' the word 'Human'. Hence, the question mark!" From my previous post My Future Posthuman 

Imagining the Posthuman Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

This posthuman's spine is binary code 00111111 'instructing' a question mark ie: ?

The posthuman's head is a tree?

Is This a Post Human? Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

Vascular System for Post Humans Gouache on paper 42 x 30 cm 2016

Vascular System for Posthumans actually has a 'face'. Two eyes, or are they two zeros? The 'vascular' system is coded with a repeated question AM I ? Certainly a portrait is something that is meant to disclose something about the AM I ? type of question.

Am I  - what - who - where?

Cheers,
Kathryn

CODE EMPIRE

Code Empire Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

In Code Empire I have painted Earth and its moon in binary code that repeats/instructs the word EMPIRE. But the full code is not seen, as it wraps around the planet and the moon. Various satellites are positioned in space, and signals radiate into - or - from outer space. 

Code Empire is a continuation of my interest in trying to portray and reflect upon the influence of contemporary digital and cyber technology in our daily lives generally, and in war and conflict specifically. 

The World Needs Artists

As regular readers know, I have a keen interest in contemporary weaponised technology, especially airborne drones, increasing autonomy in weapon systems, swarming capabilities and ubiquitous surveillance technology. Code Empire channels all these interests as well as my interest in cosmological perspective. I propose that cosmic perspectives, albeit imagined, are useful ways to critically view current global geopolitical machinations. When I say "imagined", I know some people find it hard to transport themselves beyond the here, now and the obvious - that's why the world needs artists!

Cosmic Perspective

With a cosmic perspective, a few readings of Code Empire are possible. Maybe it exposes the infiltration of militarised surveillance facilitation beyond Earth's atmosphere to dual-use communication and GPS satellites; the digital 'empire' already extended into space? If this is the case it is not just the planet enmeshed in code, but also our atmosphere and beyond. Human endeavours regarding technological development are to be marveled, but ultimately is there a human cost, perhaps not initially apparent? Researchers at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk and others have certainly determined that there are risks with accelerating developments in new technologies, including artificial intelligence. 

What if...?

Whilst Code Empire might depict Earth and the moon, it may not be an image of anything in our solar system at all! It could be another planet in another star system or galaxy - or universe, also enmeshed by code! Or, it could be 'evidence' that Earth, and possibly the universe, may be a simulation run by posthumans. My painted signals may not be radiating out from Earth, but into it from some kind of external/remote motherboard entity. It is useful to think about the idea of a posthuman simulation, because it implies that the human species no longer exists. If we are not a simulation, thinking about a post - human world might trigger more critical and urgent examinations of the role militarised-capable technology plays as a threat to human agency and wellbeing. 

___________________________

Cheers,

Kathryn

SUN - 01010011 01010101 01001110

SUN? Gouache on paper 56 x 76 cm 2017

SIGNALS
I imagine our world increasingly 'marked' with invisible signals. These signals emanate to and from various electronic devices, digital and cyber devices, drones, and satellites. Airborne drones mark a kind of mid-point node, deployed to augment surveillance, targeting and and possible killing. In many of my recent dronescapes I attempt to make the insidiousness of signals visible. I paint signals emanating from drones, either visible or obscured. I paint signals and drones in cosmic skies to take the viewer's mind to places and perspectives beyond Earth's crust and atmosphere, beyond the low earth orbit of GPS satellites and beyond the geostationary orbit of communications satellites.

The cosmic appearance of my dronescapes enables viewers to 'fly' around drones, and their surveillance and scoping signals - to keep an eye on them! It is a defiant act!     

SUN?
In SUN? I have painted emanating rays that appear to be a sun's rays. But, take a closer look - the rays are painted with strings of binary code 'instructing' the word SUN - 01010011 01010101 01001110

Detail SUN?

Ah ha, the rays are not a sun's rays but the surveillance signals of an obscured drone - maybe? The ray-like appearance could be an attempt at decoy, camouflage, stealth, covert intent, propaganda. The binary code exposes the subterfuge.

By making code visible, even aesthetic, I try to expose the increasing influence algorithms have on life in the 21st century. I have a contrary enjoyment painting code by hand - it's never going to be perfect, although it might look good!

Why is the tree-of-life upside down? Well, there could be many reasons. It may have obscured itself from the surveillance by mimicking the ray's orientation. It may have sent its roots underground for protection. It may not even be on planet Earth! Maybe it's a sign that humanity has 'escaped' a roboticised Earth - or - maybe its an indication of alien life somewhere else?


Cheers,
Kathryn