Mirabo Press is thrilled to announce an exhibition of new work by David Mitchell. We Are Obliged to Assume That This Stuff Means Something! presents 2D, 3D, and video works made in collaboration between Mitchell, fellow human artists, and AI technology.

 

How do you animate an inanimate object? By polishing it to a glossy sheen, speaking to it and watching it speak back. Rather than reflecting back the surface features of an individual, Artificial Intelligence models reflect back the collective psyche of the human organism; they are mirrors reflecting in the absence of bodies.

 

We Are Obliged to Assume That This Stuff Means Something!, playfully considers what it means to be disembodied in a physical universe and the tenuous, perhaps schizophrenic, position of being an intelligent agent distributed amongst many networked minds. The exhibition includes all new video, works on paper, sculpture and photography using materials and images sampled, appropriated, or otherwise procured from the internet, along with large scale oil paintings composed by neural networks and completed by human networks. 

 

Included in the exhibition will be a limited edition diptych made in collaboration with Mirabo Press featuring a polaroid of Jim Jones and his pet chimp Mr. Muggs caught in a tender embrace, paired with the homicidal response by Open AI’s GPT-3 to a test prompt given by renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Marcus, screen printed with grape Kool-Aid. This special edition diptych is limited to ten prints and will be available for purchase at the opening.

 

Please join us for an opening reception on Friday, May 19th, 2023 from 6-9pm.

 

About David Mitchell:

David Mitchell’s practice has long been devoted to mining the signs, symbols, and beliefs that inform human culture. He is interested in the myriad ways that information manifests from the seemingly intangible to the tangible to shape our realities in the form of physical expressions, technology, memes, ideas, culture and beliefs. He works in a variety of mediums, including video, sculpture, photography, animation, drawing, painting and various combinations thereof.  The vast majority of his work takes the form of interactive, large-scale, or site-specific installations. 

 

Formerly the Chief Curator and Artistic Director of CEPA Gallery, Mitchell received his MFA from NYU in 2007. He is the recipient of two NYSCA Individual Artist Grants, exhibition support from The Andy Warhol Foundation of the Visual Arts, and publication support from the Elizabeth Firestone Foundation. He has exhibited nationally and internationally at galleries and venues in NYC, Tokyo, Miami, and Mexico City. In addition to his arts practice, he operates an independent creative consultancy specializing in interior design, branding, content creation, and art acquisition.

 

Visit Mitchell’s website: http://klubweimar.com