Egor Kraft

At the exhibition from September 1, 2018 to June 2, 2019

»Content Aware Studies« is based on generative and algorithmic reconstructions of the lost fragments in friezes and statues of Late Antiquity and the Hellenistic period. The sculptures in the installation are generated by machine learning algorithms, which are designed to fill and reconstruct areas of images as well as 3-D models where parts of sculptures have been lost or are missing. This process constitutes quasi-archeological knowledge production and interpretations of history and culture in the era of ubiquitous computation.

An algorithm capable of self-learning is directed to replenish lost fragments of the friezes and sculptures. Based on an analysis of models, it generates models, which are then 3-D printed in various materials and used to fill the voids of the original sculptures and their copies.

The synthetic intelligence that tends to restore faithfully original forms, also produces bizarre errors and algorithmic speculative interpretations of Hellenistic and Roman aesthetics that are familiar to us, revealing a machinic understanding of human Classical Antiquity.