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Trevor Paglen

Evolved Hallucinations

Nov 7, 2024

Featured Exhibition Image

Overview

“I wanted to see what would happen if we tried to build computer vision models based on a wide range of historical, cultural, and notional worldviews.“

- Trevor Paglen

Key Information

Date:Nov 07, 2024, 8:00 AM ET

Artworks:1000

Discuss:Discord Arrow Pointer

I've long been frustrated by the literalness with which fields like computer science and computer vision approach the topic of seeing. It's a neat trick to point a camera at a picture and have the caption "hot dog" or "not hot dog" appear on the screen. But if you show Rene Magritte's iconic "The Treachery of Images" to such an object recognition model, the classifier will invariably return the result: "This is a pipe." Something is wrong here.
Visual perception is squishy and slippery, formed by each of our unique biological makeups, our memories, history, culture, and our own subjectivities. Just as a monarch butterfly sees a flower entirely differently than a field mouse, a medieval Spanish farmer sees a comet in an entirely different way than a contemporary architect. An early 20th-century psychoanalyst or semiotician might understand images from a dream quite differently than a present-day cognitive neuroscientist. "Seeing" is a deeply historical, cultural, subjective, and even political affair, profoundly shaped by our sensory and social environs.
With the "evolved hallucinations" project, I wanted to see what would happen if we tried to build computer vision models based on a wide range of historical, cultural, and notional worldviews. I began training models on allegorical art, symbolism, and metaphor, using image-vocabularies drawn from literature, philosophy, poetry, folklore, and spiritual traditions. Could I build models that embraced the slipperiness and squishiness of visual perception? What would it mean to build a model designed to "see" the world through the extended allegory of Dante? What might the world look like through the "eyes" of future seaweed on a post-human earth? Or the worldview of a Cassandra-like being, fated to see the future but helpless to change it? The Evolved Hallucinations is my partial answer to that question.
- Trevor Paglen

Release Details

The Evolved Hallucinations series of artwork is currently available by inquiry only.

There are 1,000 Digital Editions (NFTs) broken down into the following categories:

Hallucinations: 950 images

Each image is unique and minted at 2k pixels. Collectors can purchase individual artworks or grids of 9 and 36 (all individually minted). Artwork selection is first come first serve with priority given to those purchasing grids:

  • - Grid of 36 individually minted NFTs*    $25,000
  • - Grid of 9 individually minted NFTs**     $6,500
  • - Individual NFTs                                            $750

* 10 available, first priority selection
** 30 available, second priority selection
Note that "2017" special trait artworks are now all sold or reserved.

Neurons: 50 animations

Each animation is unique, 63 seconds long and minted at 800 pixels. Artwork selection is first come first serve:

  • - Individual animations    $3,000

For all enquiries email hello@fellowship.xyz.

Digital Artworks