Thresholds, 2019 - 2023
Thresholds is a series of digital artworks created through GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks) and later on with the addition of my own computerized brush strokes. I use the word 'threshold' as it can be a boundary or a starting point of an experience. I like its connection to the words 'thresh,'meaning "to separate seed from a plant using a machine"v and 'thrash,' meaning "to beat soundly or go over again and again."
There are different groupings within Thresholds: Legacy, Veil and Nexus.
Thresholds: Legacy, 2019
Thresholds: Legacy (2019) represents the earliest phase of the series, a space of pure machine vision where GAN-generated images emerge unaltered—glimpses of an AI’s latent imagination, untouched by human intervention. These works act as raw transmissions from a neural network, spectral and unresolved, as if peering through a thin membrane between perception and abstraction.
Thresholds: Veil, 2020-21
Thresholds: Veil (2020–21) introduces the first moments of human interference, where subtle digital brushstrokes weave into the GAN’s output, creating a dialogue between artist and algorithm. This phase embodies transition—passages between synthetic and organic, automation and intention—blurring distinctions between what is generated and what is guided.
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Thresholds: Nexus, 2023
Thresholds: Nexus (2023) expands the conversation with diffusion models and deeper manipulations, where AI and artist converge in a recursive process of alteration and response. Here, images are iterated upon, deconstructed, and reassembled, forming hybrid spaces that question authorship and memory in an era of machine-assisted creativity. The threshold is no longer a boundary but a site of synthesis.
Travis LeRoy Southworth's series Thresholds feel almost like portals into a painting or a new realm. The term "threshold" serves as a potent metaphor for his artistic pursuits, reflecting the concept of a boundary or limit at which a particular phenomenon occurs. It also encompasses a liminal space where human experience and artificial intelligence intersect. Southworth's method entails an abundance of feedback loops, including conversations with Chat GPT and text-to-image outputs.
Each piece begins with an underpainting that blends portraiture and color fields, revealing nothing from each specific reference, possibly evoking a distant recollection. He reworks and frequently competes with the machine-altered images at each phase, rebuilding elements of paintings based on his own memories of the work. Elements of the body peek through and mix with marks that appear to be physically painted but are actually digital upon closer scrutiny. Southworth's Thresholds seeks to blur the lines between authentic and artificial reconstructions, calling into question the reliability of our memories in the age of AI.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
Thresholds by Travis LeRoy Southworth is part of the exhibition RECOLLECTION. AI AND MEMORY presented by EXPANDED.ART in collaboration with The NFT Gallery at their galleries in New York and London, 11 April – 13 May 2023.
19 artists explore the idea of further challenging the concreteness of human memory—personal or collective—through creative collaboration with AI. Memories are nebulous.
Scientific studies and phenomena such as "The Mandela Effect" have shown that humans rarely recall things in their unbiased exactitude. Artificial Intelligence already assists human memory in the form of predictive text and GPS navigation. One would surmise that there exists a role for AI when it comes to supplementing even more complex memory.
Artists: Ilya Bliznets, Crashblossom, Anna Dart, Olga Fedorova, Ross Goodwin, Danielle King, Margaret Murphy, Kika Nicolela, Roope Rainisto, Daria Rastunina, Manuel Rossner, Travis LeRoy Southworth, Anne Spalter, Nathaniel Stern, Sasha Stiles, Stephan Vasement, Nicola Villa, Sabato Visconti, and Erika Weitz.
ABOUT THE NFT
Contract address: 0x4a0a83a8c943f832620ef01fe90a956fbf3a721a
Token Standard: ERC-721
Blockchain: Ethereum
Metadata: Frozen and decentralized