( A derivative work from "Monkey Logic": https://bit.ly/3s9FsYN )

One of a series of collages, "R2C3" draws from dozens of images from a neural network, originally generated for a previous project. A combination of human and computer interpretations of abstraction, the original square images that emerged are ambiguous textures by themselves, but they can be stitched together to produce larger landscapes with uncanny, lifelike qualities. My process for building these collages can best be described as a reverse puzzle, where the look of the pieces guide what I decide the image will become.

I was somewhat aesthetically inspired by space telescope photography, in which massive pictures of the most distant features we can measure are assembled together to make up a larger coherent picture. Space is the darkest object in the universe; exploring it nicely parallels the process of creative exploration, as both are acts of drawing out clarity from an ambiguous background.