Yet another school year has passed at my local art academy in Sint-Niklaas (Belgium).

This year I have been focusing mostly on working on my ‘March 2 Infinities - Landscapes’ art series and I began to explore the new ‘Transhumanists’ art series.

Art is created using either traditional media like charcoal / oil paintings or using purely digital means. Combinations of both occur as well. Computer AI is used sometimes to generate new reference materials based upon existing own works.

It are definitely exciting times as an artist to explore and find new creative paths.

March 2 Infinity - Landscapes

“The March to Infinity had departed. Will Humanity make the right choices?”

Story

Within this art series I explore the impact of technology on the future of mankind - which has made itself nearly gods by applying extensions onto their own bodies & souls.

Earth however is rampaged by centuries of exploitation and technology misusages. The lucky (wealthy) ones fled to the stars and left this barren world ages ago. The unfortunates, who were left behind, are roaming the lands in search of huge black stones which should contain the information to reach the skies and the technologies to upgrade their wrecked bodies. Or at least that’s what the prophecies claim.

Eons have since then passed …

Wrecked bodies scavenging the lands in search for that forgotten knowledge. Hopeful they are longing for the eternal life among their brothers & sisters at the stars.

Art Techniques

Barren landscapes are depicted using traditional oil painting inter mangled with AI driven reference generation based upon my own (traditional) works.

A new traditional work is created upon an AI generated reference on heavy gessoed paper or canvas using oil paints. The new work can then be served again to the AI for a new reference generation. And thus an unendless feedback loop is created and continued …

I created the term (abbreviation) ‘TRADQAN’ to indicate this kind of work progress.

Future

I created several new works within this series and I am planning to continue to explore even more.

You can discover the art series at my Contemporary website. Various works are already available as NFT on OBJKT marketplace which runs on the CleanNFT blockchain Tezos .

March 2 Infinity - Transhumanists

Story

’Transhumanism’ is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition. (WIKI)

Technology (mis)used to modify one owns human body to reach the status of gods.

But does unchecked, wild & dangerous changes to one self modifies ones soul as well?
Nobody knows.

Results often madly gone wrong. Only a happy few that reach the goal of eternity.

Art Techniques

This new art series depicts portraits of modified humans using a raw painting technique of oils mixed with charcoal on heavy gessoed paper.

Future

I am planning on creating an extensive range of portraits. I might consider launching these series as a new NFT collection.

Retrospect

I am quite happy with my progress and new creative paths. I am definitely looking forward to a new year to continue exploring these art series.

Steven

My local academy Sint-Niklaas (Belgium) is having its ‘open doors day’ this weekend. People can freely visit all the class rooms and get to know the various disciplines and look at the created art by the students.

My traditional AI based art works are on display as well. You can find them in the class room and in the hallway.

Feel free to drop by and explore the academy.

More info at the academy website (dutch).

I am participating in the exposition ‘PARADE’ at the art academy in my home town Sint-Niklaas (Belgium).

I am displaying some of my new “tradqan” oil paintings from my ‘March 2 Infinity’ art series. The art series examines the impact of technology on humankind and the quest for Transhumanism. The works themselves are created using a process of feeding my own traditional oil paintings into an AI computer model which then generates new images. Those new images are then used as a source for creating a new traditional oil painting. And then the process restarts …

Students will also work in the exposition area during normal class hours so feel free to drop by and say hello.

More info regarding the exposition at the academy website (dutch).

The March 2 Infinity art series has been extended with ‘GAN’ based digital artworks and made available as NFT on HEN.

This art series examines the impact of technology on humankind and the quest for Transhumanism.

I envision that in a not so far future the earth has undergone dramatic environmental changes. Within those strange landscapes, leftover human groups wander around in search of huge black obelisks which are told by their prophets to hold the long forgotten and forbidden knowledge of Transhumanism. With this knowledge humans can become gods and reach for the stars and leave the destroyed Earth. Just like their lucky ancestors once did.

The traditional landscape artworks are executed in oils and charcoal and use a fluid, expressive style.

The subject matter & impact of technology is ideal as a concept to experiment with ‘Generative Adversarial Network’ (GAN for short) machine learning. Basically a deep learning network of computers uses my artworks to train itself to generate new art combining my art and public available internet images.

The results are further digitally reworked and fitted into the theme of the art series.

The art works are now available as single edition NFT’s on the clean Tezos blockchain platform. You can collect them via my M2I Art account.

I hope you enjoy the new creative possibilities and will join me with the march 2 Infinity.