Private view: Thursday 7 September, 6pm-8pm

GEN/GEN: Generative Generations is a group exhibition spanning six decades, featuring works from: Loren Bednar, Darien Brito, Sougwen Chung, Harold Cohen, Brendan Dawes, Ernest Edmonds, Licia He, Tyler Hobbs, Ben Kovach, William Latham, Rhea Myers, Piter Pasma, Monica Rizzolli, Melissa Wiederrecht, and Stephen Willats.

Gazelli Art House in collaboration with tech partner Verisart presents their first co-curated exhibition GEN/GEN: Generative Generations, taking over all three floors of Gazelli Art House’s central Mayfair gallery. This exhibition continues the gallery’s longstanding interest in and promotion of digital art, intertwining with the historical angle of the gallery’s program.

Following Gazelli Art House’s The AARON Retrospective, and ahead of a major 2024 museum survey at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, the gallery has deepened investigations into Computer Art pioneer Harold Cohen’s practice by aligning his work with three of his peers – Ernest Edmonds, William Latham, and Stephen Willats – while recontextualising these works through an array of contemporary generative artists.

GEN/GEN: Generative Generations features Cohen’s seminal works from the mid-80s alongside the In AARON’s Garden series (2007), both created via AARON (a computer programme the artist designed to create art independently). Works from fractal geometrist Edmonds will include U-matic tape recordings of AI programmed film and computer generated, hand modified images. Among other works, Computer Scientist Latham shows an early piece from his critical FormSynth series – inspired by Tantric art and the Natural History Museum – whose exploration of the evolution of artistic systems became the blueprint for later software systems, Mutator and Form Grow. From conceptual forerunner Willats, works from the Change Exercise and Unit Drawings series demonstrate the artist’s avant garde approach to perception: active diagrams that relay the complexities of our behaviour and environment.

Works by previous GAZELL.iO residents Sougwen Chung and Rhea Myers and represented artist Brendan Dawes display interactive contributions that bridge the divide between artwork and observer. Recently acquired by the V&A, Chung presents a brand new, generative work which, like Cohen, blurs the lines between human creativity and machine intelligence. Meanwhile Cohen’s fascination with code finds parallel in Dawes’ data enriched presentation of his interactive sculpture, You, Me and the Machine (2022). This will be shown alongside the debut of a brand new iteration of Dawes’ Cinema Redux series (2004-ongoing) – one of which now hangs in MoMA’s permanent collection – based on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). Myers presents a rare opportunity to view work not seen since her graduate show, established pieces that offer up code as narrative, holding us, as Cohen’s work does, captive in a story telling reverie. Works such as Surgical Strike (1996) combine inspirations ranging from Latham’s appearance in the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World (1980) to books such as War In The Age of Intelligent Machines (1991) which, according to Myers, provided a “good target for infecting the clean space of the platonic geometry of computer graphics with the messy reality of computing”.

Broadening the boundaries of contemporary explorations into generative art, Monica Rizzolli, Darien Brito, and Loren Bednar will present never-before-seen artworks. Rizzolli offers her most exclusive work to date, a momentous opportunity for collectors to experience infinite generations of one artwork. Amalgamating the physical and the digital, Ben Kovach and Melissa Wiederrecht will present works that straddle both realms, symbiotic of Cohen’s use of AARON for producing physical artworks. Engaging a similar methodology Piter Pasma, Licia He, and Tyler Hobbs will present artworks on paper created via plotter, probing ideas of authorship that arise when human and machine collaborate. Illustrating the democratisation of generative art technology, this show for the first time will enable some of the exhibited artists to showcase their debut long- form generative works on the GAZELL.iO marketplace.

In featuring artists who have embraced generative art throughout various periods, GEN/GEN: Generative Generations focuses on our intergenerational fascination with human and machine interconnections, and how this dialogue can transcend time.

About the Artists

Loren Bednar explores colourful patterns in motion, values experimentation, and has been producing generative work since 2006.

Darien Brito, an audiovisual artist and creative coder who combines music, algorithms, and visual effects to create immersive sensorial experiences in various formats.

Sougwen Chung is an artist, researcher and founder of Scilicet, who creates captivating and evocative works that blend traditional techniques with cutting-edge technologies, engaging themes of collaboration and the intersections of digital and physical realms.

Harold Cohen, a renowned artist and pioneer in the field of computer-generated art, dedicated his career to exploring the intersection of technology and creativity, developing the groundbreaking computer program AARON, which autonomously creates intricate and expressive paintings.

Brendan Dawes uses generative processes involving data, machine learning, and code to create interactive installations, electronic objects, online experiences, data visualisations, motion graphics, and physical sculptures. An Alumni of the Lumen Prize and Aesthetica Art Prize, Dawes’ work has been featured in exhibitions worldwide, including Big Bang Data in thirteen cities, and three shows at MoMA, New York.

Ernest Edmonds is a pioneer of generative art known for his innovative and thought-provoking works that seamlessly merge art, technology, and human experience, his contributions awarding him the The Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement in Digital Art, in 2017.

Licia He, a generative artist with a Ph.D. in Information Science, who explores ways to record and present information around her via digital and physical painting practices and use of plotters.

Tyler Hobbs explores the interplay between natural and digital forms, using algorithms for analysis and generative approaches, embracing both structure and error to illuminate the complexity of our digital existence.

Ben Kovach creates emergent generative artwork with a natural essence, using geometry as common language, mathematics, and minimalism.

William Latham is a groundbreaking artist whose pioneering work in computer-generated art and evolutionary algorithms has transformed the boundaries of digital creativity, blending organic and technological forms to create mesmerising and immersive visual experiences.

Rhea Myers is an artist, hacker, and writer whose work situates technology and culture in mutual interrogation to produce new ways of seeing the world as it unfolds around us.

Piter Pasma, explores randomness through code, creating complex and expressive artwork, and has been lead organiser for the past two years of Genuary, a generative art month.

Monica Rizzolli a painter and creative programmer, began her journey at UNESP, then explored generative art, co-founded Noite de Processing, and launched the Fragments series on Art Blocks.

Melissa Wiederrecht, has an MS in Computer Science and has released collections that explore the paradoxes between order and chaos.

Stephen Willats is a pioneering conceptual artist whose multidisciplinary practice explores social dynamics, systems of communication, and the relationship between individuals and their environments, challenging traditional notions of art and engaging communities in the process.