Aphrodisiac Intelligence

Solo Exhibition

19.06.2023 – 15.07.2023

Polana Institute

Hydra, Greece

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Polana Institute gallery from Warsaw presents Aphrodisiac Intelligence, a solo exhibition of Irini Karayannopoulou, in Keresbino, Hydra. The artist's new body of work explores the possibilities of artificial intelligence in art production. Irini Karayannopoulou uses a collage technique that combines painting and the algorithmic capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to poetically explore the relationship between human and machine. On the same day, there will be a launch of the new issue of Janus magazine that consists of images created by Irini Karayannopoulou, with the contribution of AI and texts by journalist Efie Falida (Ta Nea newspaper). In Aphrodisiac Intelligence, the artist creates her raw material from scratch, using algorithm and data. After generating the digital images that interest her, she intervenes with painting and collage. As we browse the exhibition we inevitably wonder what was created by a human and what was created by the machine.
In her artistic practice, Irini Karayannopoulou uses media such as painting, animation, collage, drawing and publications. She often finds her raw material in outdated magazines and newspapers. She paints directly on the printed pages, creates collages, photographs and reprints the images of her choice, in a constant negotiation with matter, with image, with boundaries and with mixed media. Often her images return in the form of a magazine, as in the peculiar case of Janus femzine. In the 1970s there were two magazines named Janus. One focused on poetry and science fiction and was published in Madison, Wisconsin by a group of feminists. The other Janus was London based and had erotic content. Irini Karayannopoulou was inspired by both of these publications to create her own Janus, as a self-published edition in 150 copies, challenging and commenting on the stereotypical notions surrounding femininity and its roles. Each issue of Janus results from the collaboration of the artist and a guest writer. Janus femzine no3 will be presented in Hydra and contains images resulting from the painter's experiments with artificial intelligence systems. On the occasion of these images, the journalist Efi Falida invents a scenario around the new reality of digital presence. The combination of image and speech results in an issue dedicated to the invasion of machines and to the excitement but also the concern it causes us. This charming game between words, imagination, but also machine training, is only one of two sides of the same coin. As Efi Falida writes, “You have to create the conditions for the surprise and then accept the consequences.”

 

 

Opening reception: Monday, June 19, 2023 6pm
Keresbino Hydra, D.Rafalia-Ath. Miaouli, Hydra 18040
The event is kindly sponsored by heteroclito cave et bar a vins, KIR-YIANNI, ΦΙ Fatourada and MACART.