Sediment Nodes #3

Digital videos, custom generative adversarial networks (GANs), NFT, and Ethereum blockchain, 2022–23
Private collection

Entangled Others (Feileacan McCormick and Sofia Crespo) employs generative tools to portray the complex relationships, interactions, and interconnectedness between the human and nonhuman worlds. Their art uses a biologically informed model of computation (the neural network) to represent real and imagined species.

SedimentNodes was inspired by a real-life encounter with an underwater ecosystem. Crespo and McCormick, both avid divers, wanted to convey the experience of navigating sediment-laden waters after a storm. What at first appears to be a cloudy mass reveals a diverse ecosystem teeming with microscopic life-forms when illuminated. Sediment Nodes presents an evolving array of artificial organisms and landscapes, as if we’re discovering a vibrant world hidden just beneath the surface.

Crespo and McCormick’s creative process relies on custom-made generative adversarial networks (GANs) trained on images and video collected from their own dives, as well as custom synthetic data and publicly available imagery. These neural networks are modeled on the structure and functionality of brain neurons and can learn to detect patterns in source material to produce convincing fakes.