To The Letter, 2021
AI GAN video
To the Letter is a collaborative creation between artist and computer. Six source videos were created by a computer by giving the artificial intelligence GAN, or generative adversarial network, example sets of the letters A, B, C, D, F, then a set that combined all five of those letters, as ABCDEF. As the GAN attempted to understand the forms of the letters, it created sets of interpretative images that were then selected and mixed into videos. The power of artificial intelligence was again used to morph between different still images. Each of the letter sets (and the one combined letter set) were used to produce what became together a bank of videos that reflected potential “ideas” of these letters as understood by the computer. Kaczmarek then built a custom program that utilized multiple nested and randomized functions to remix the video bank in a way that removed human choice from the actual generation.
This work was specifically produced for this show with the use of letters in connection with the setting in a library, where books/letters are an important element to the institution and to students.