The subject of AI is daily news. Generative artist Tyler Hobbs has been exploring the intersection of human-made and digital art for a while and this exhibition shows some of the results.
Mechanical Hand, his first solo show in the UK at Unit Gallery, revealed influences including Agnes Martin. I also saw connections with Paul Klee and Park Sea-Bo.
The combination and blurring of analogue and digital worlds is one that we already live with. How many times have you greeted someone when meeting in real life only to realise that you have previously only communicated online? It’s happened to me more than once, especially since the pandemic.
You can almost feel the movement of the plotter in this piece above and the diagonal – was it deliberate or a glitch that was then integrated?
The series below looks like a 50/50 mix but can we be sure without information from the artist?
Don’t assume that the lines are machine-made and the colour applied by hand.
The pieces below remind me of those experiments many of us have done, drawing lines as close together as possible; there’s always going to be variation, a rhythm emerging when made by hand. That’s part of the appeal.
But are these drawn by hand or by machine? I like the uncertainty though not knowing is a little unnerving.
