Mario Klingemann
A pioneer in the field of neural networks, computer learning and artificial intelligence, German artist Mario Klingemann uses cutting edge techniques to examine age-old questions about creativity, culture and perception. Describing his oeuvre, Klingemann noted, “If there is one common denominator it’s my desire to understand, question and subvert the inner workings of systems of any kind.” The resulting work – from grotesque “neurographs” arrived at through a Tinder-like voting system, to an infinite stream of entirely machine-generated portraits – challenges traditional media and aesthetic principles, offering a tantalizing glimpse into what the future may hold for contemporary art.
Born in 1970, Klingemann grew up in the age of the first handheld computer games, arcade machines and home computers. An autodidact, Klingemann began learning computer programming in the 1980s, and aspired to a career that synthesized technology and the visual arts. Finding no such option available at the time, Klingemann started his professional life in advertising and design. In 1994, he began creating websites on the still-nascent World Wide Web, and in 1997 Klingemann co-founded coma, a collective of media artists. Since then, his artistic practice has evolved alongside breakthroughs in AI and deep learning, with Klingemann’s contributions at the leading edge.
Klingemann currently lives in Munich, Germany, where he also runs a space called Dog & Pony. He is an Artist in Residence at Google Arts & Culture, and also works with institutions like the British Library, Cardiff University and the New York Public Library. His works have been shown at the Ars Electronica Festival, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among others. In 2016, Klingemann received the British Library Labs Artistic Award, and in 2018 he won the Lumen Prize Gold, which recognizes works of art made using technology. In 2019, his largest project to date, Circuit Training, was installed at the Barbican’s AI: More Than Human exhibition in London.
Last update on 10-03-2023
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Featured Artworks
In this piece of the Teratoma Series, Mario Klingemann explores flesh as prime material of his art. The stretchiness of skin mirrors the image distortion from the use of artificial intelligence. After building a photo bank of bodies, the artist processed his images to generate his black and white piece with adversarial networks (GAN). In this composition, flesh formations seem to compress as if forming a concrete block. The work’s aesthetic relies on contrasts of tones and opposition between firmness and malleability.
Flesh Formation, Teratoma Series
2020
Still
In this piece of the Teratoma Series, Mario Klingemann explores flesh as prime material of his art. The stretchiness of skin mirrors the image distortion from the use of artificial intelligence. After building a photo bank of bodies, the artist processed his images to generate his black and white piece with adversarial networks (GAN). In this composition, bright and ghostly faces seem to distort and fade into folds of flesh. The abstraction relies on blurring lines into a monochromatic visual to present an uncanny vision of the body.
Teratoma Series
2020
Still
The Foundry
Events
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Digital Horizons: The New State of Art is a group show featuring 20 NFTs selected in collaboration with international art collectors. The display aims at presenting the state of contemporary digital art by looking at the pivotal roles played by Collectibles and Fine Art NFTs in the understanding and popularization of collecting digital art.
"The broad adoption of NFTs has radically changed the conventional ways of making, enjoying and collecting art in the past 18 months. By proving to be a stable alternative to the traditional art trade platforms, NFTs and blockchain-based technologies have been met with enthusiasm and curiosity by artists, collectors and galleries. Alongside the expert artists who have been making works with digital tools long before the blockchain, a new exciting generation of creatives use NFTs to reach collectors, galleries and museums. The artworks made to be traded and collected on the blockchain provoke the contemporary art connoisseur by looking at digital culture and computer science as their prime source of inspiration. If Pindar Van Arman created a series generated by a GAN trained on 8-bit Pixel Art, Pak’s works propose a creative approach to math and numbers. Mario Klingemann and Sofia Crespo explore the creative potential of Artificial Intelligence with works delving deep into the wildest dreams of machines. Martin Lukas Ostachowski and Oficinas TK collaborated to examine the sculptural quality of the digital mediascape, the same that led Sarah Zucker to develop an art style inspired by the almost otherworldly omnipresent presence of screens in our life. Zucker’s interest in pop culture is shared with Beeple, whose works act as modern twists on the memento mori formula, imagining popular pop icons rotting in a not so distant future. AES+F look at the interactions and power play in contemporary society with hyper-realistic animations while Damien Hirst questions the connection between digital and physical artifacts with a collection of NFTs corresponding to unique physical artworks which are stored in a secure vault in the UK. Consisting of sculptor Hande Şekerciler and digital artist Arda Yalkın, The Turkish artist duo ha:ar combines a traditional approach to making art with new technologies, mixing physical sculpting and 3D modeling to make hybrid works that fall within the liminal space in between art definitions."
(Filippo Lorenzin, curator)
"The NFTs revolution in the art field could be not totally understood without considering the most innovative aspect introduced since its birth, a new typology of collecting. Some of the first NFTs ever made were in fact PFPs (Picture for Proofs) project, naively designed to be used as avatars for social media accounts. RarePepe were among the first pilot projects of this kind, a series of 1,774 collectible cards created by various artists in 2016 and released on Bitcoin blockchain. One year after the first-ever marketplace for rare digital assets was launched. Through the Ethereum blockchain, CryptoPunks were created as 10,000 unique cartoon characters that can be easily collected by owning an Ethereum wallet. Based on the ERC720 standard, the collectibles went sold in a short time creating a secondary market driven by the community willing to trade each token for increasing prices based on scarcity. Meebits are the second project from the same inventors at LarvaLabs. 20.000 three dimensional voxel characters, created by a custom generative algorithm to become the perfect 3D avatar for virtual worlds. Some very established artists had their say into this new art section too, Takashi Murakami is the co-creator with RTFKT of CloneX, a 20.000 avatar release associated with the future production of wearables for the metaverse. If previously collectibles only had a meaning into the digital environment, owning a Bored Ape Yacht Club changed this paradigm, allowing the collectors to enter an exclusive club made up of advantages for the community but above all of social prestige. Community is the key point shared among projects such as Cool Cats, Doodles in which holding rare artworks from the collection will allow one to reach a higher role inside the community. The same principle applies to World of Women with an additional mission, to make Web 3.0 a more inclusive and equitable ecosystem through the active support of female artists into the NFT space. Past and present meet again in one of the oldest and one of the latest projects. Crypto Kitties and Moonbirds shares their particularity of the time-related increase in value, summary of the PFP market success, in which holding for the longest the same NFT will actually mutate the artwork itself."
(Bruno Pitzalis, curator)