The audiovisual multi-artist event 'The artificial we are embodied in' took place on 6 October 2023 at The Dream Machine, Glasgow.

The programme featured 3 audiovisual works from international artists, specially prepared for the multi-sensory experience with projections, sound, and light of the venue. The projects investigate the relationship between the natural and the artificial and use the human body to work with neural networks.

Elina Zazulia will present the project 'Dissolutions', exploring the forms of human corporeality using AI. The Gray Cake duo uses realtime video capture, neural network algorithms and sound loops to realise the 'Another state of the living' performance, in which body movements and everyday objects' visual properties become the initial material for the graphics. Media art duo Mere formed by Olesya Ilenok & Andrey Chugunov will present a new immersive work 'I got stuck in textures, nothing can go wrong' exploring identity through body interaction and Scottish nature.

The event is supported by the Betty McAllister Award from Dream Machine.

About Dream Machine
The Dream Machine is a collective that provides bespoke creative spaces and equipment. One of the spaces, The Dream Room, is an adaptable multi-sensory venue. By controlling its mood lighting, underfloor heating, surround sound, and immersive projectable walls, organizers can create a one-of-a-kind space to fit their bespoke needs and purposes.
https://www.dreammachineproductions.org

Elina Zazulia (Colombia) is an interdisciplinary artist who experiments with media technologies and movement-based practices. In her practice, Elina explores human perception, paying special attention to the psychophysical properties of audiovisual instruments. She works with video, generative graphics and sound, and neural networks.

Artwork Dissolutions
This is an audiovisual project exploring the forms of human corporeality using neural networks. Blurring the formed idea of how the body should look, the artist is looking for new images through generative sound and graphics. Thus, machine learning in the project becomes a way of studying the perception of non-human forms and finding answers to questions about the nature of visual and audio information and its interpretation. The visual part is an interpolation video generated by a neural network and edited by digital processing, the data set consists of images of the human body. The project's sound is a combination of field recordings and textures generated using AI. Duration: 15 minutes.

Gray Cake is Alexander Serechenko and Katya Pryanik (Russia/Armenia). Duo explores the phenomenon of cross-media, combining traditional artistic techniques and new technologies. Winners and laureates of Pixel Fest, Audi Born Digital, Re:store Digital Earth, EOFA International Residence. The works "Dreams of the machine" and "Backlash" are in the collection of the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow; works "Dreams of the machine" and "Ten thousand and one nights" - in the Flux Foundation, Geneva.

Artwork Another state of the living
The Gray Cake duo implements neural network algorithms and custom loopers to the performance, in which everyday objects and their visual properties become the initial data. Artists are experimenting with live improvisation, and collaborating with neural network programmed by them. The neural network through the camera reads simple configurations and everyday objects while the artist's hands transform them into houses, plants, space, sky, ocean, and chaos similar in shape. Thus, the artists build a narrative about the development of the world from outer space to the modern urban landscape.
Duration: 43 minutes.

Mere - media art duo of Olesya Ilenok and Andrey Chugunov.
Olesya Ilenok (Glasgow, UK) is an interdisciplinary artist. She explores subjective useless data and relationships with the urban environment using a combination of digital and physical media, at the intersection of craft and technology. Presented projects in personal and international group shows and festivals, such as Ars Electronica, Art Prospect, Listen Biennial. Olesya Ilenok won the Art of Neuroscience 2019.
Andrey Chugunov (East Kilbride, UK) is an interdisciplinary artist working at the turn of digital and analogue media and researching topics of mortality, temporality, autonomy, and memory decay. Got the New Faces Award in the Art division at the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival 2018. Andrey got an honorable mention in Media art nomination for the FutureTense Award 2022.

Artwork I got stuck in textures, nothing can go wrong
'I got stuck in textures, nothing can go wrong' is created specifically for the technical potential of the venue combining 4-channel projection, integrated 8-channel along with an additional 14-channel sound system. The project is based on the experience of living in East Kilbride and explores the dissoluted borders between the body and nature, and the process of self-determination through place. Collected video recordings of forest textures and macro-footages of human skin form the basis for generative AI graphics. Forests' field recordings and records of the interaction of natural surfaces and contact microphones are combined with human-generated sound to complement the exploration of the scale of the human and the natural.
Duration: 30 minutes.